


Through a Broken Mirror

by LerxstInSpace



Series: Broken Mirror-verse [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam/Shiro (Voltron) Reunion, Alternate Reality, Alternate Reality Black Paladin Adam (Voltron), Alternate reality character death, Alternate season 8, Character Death Fix, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt Adam (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, I swear this ends happy but they gotta work through some shit first, Klance-ish if you turn your head and squint, Let Adam Say Fuck, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-S7, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Whump, it's alternate realities all the way down, welp guess this is an AU now but lol w/e
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-08-27 22:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 80,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16711372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LerxstInSpace/pseuds/LerxstInSpace
Summary: Adam was alive.Broken and barely conscious when Keith found him, but alive. In Black Paladin armor. Flying another Black Lion.How the hell was any of that possible? Shiro guessed there was probably some alternate reality weirdness involved here; he even had a vague idea of how and where the timeline in whatever reality Adam came from might have diverged from the timeline in this one, but…The odds of a wormhole opening up in a reality where Adam had survived and then spitting him out into a reality that had an Adam-shaped hole in it…It wasn’t an accident. It couldn’t have been an accident.





	1. Chapter 1

There was something different about this wormhole. It felt as if it would open up in the same place it left and that, in itself, was strange enough. But at the same time it felt deeper, somehow. The walls looked different. Thicker. More solid, if that was even a word that could be applied to the boundaries of a hole punched in space.

Black didn’t like it.

Black didn’t like any of this, and it knew the Paladin liked it even less. But staying on the other side would have been far worse, for everyone. So it didn’t wait for the Paladin to give the command. It just went, fast as it could, while it still could, with a wordless promise to explain everything later as best it could, if they both survived.

 _Then help me out here, Black,_ the Paladin thought. _I can’t steer with one hand._

Black touched the Paladin’s mind gently. The Lions didn’t communicate with their Paladins in words, that wasn’t how it worked. But Black reassured him that it could handle keeping itself off the walls of the wormhole for him, and it felt him--not relax exactly, but just sort of… let that one worry go.

Good.

But the Paladin was still in pain. Black could feel it tearing at his mind, searing white-hot and centered in what remained of his arm. His left arm. Black could feel the rest of it there, lying on the floor of the cockpit like the husk of some dead parasite but it was harmless now, now that the Paladin had--

The wormhole opened up ahead, and through it Black and the Paladin could see a planet. Mostly blue, with swirls of white clouds and masses of green and brown land, and the Paladin recognized it immediately and at the same time refused to believe what his eyes were showing him. Black recognized it as well, and was certain some error had occurred somewhere in its sensors.

This planet did not exist anymore. They had just watched it die.

And yet there it was, just beyond the end of the wormhole, blue and green and whole, and the Paladin was just starting to think that maybe, just maybe, this could be real when the shock wave hit from behind.

Black was not ready for it. Neither was the Paladin.

Contact with the wall of the wormhole, starboard wing. And again, port shoulder. And again. Frantically--or as close to “frantically” as Black did anything--it tried to compensate, to correct, all the while attempting to analyze the source of the shock wave.

Black touched the Paladin’s mind again. The response was scattered and faint, and Black queried the life support and monitoring system in his armor. Multiple broken ribs. Internal bleeding. Possible concussion. Severe shock.

Black skidded all the way out into open space, propelled out of the wormhole by the edge of the blast. As soon as it was clear, it diverted as much power as it could to life support, to keeping its Paladin alive.

The wormhole had closed. Collapsed, more like it. The shock wave… it was powerful beyond any measure Black knew, like the force of a black hole collapsing...

All at once, Black understood everything.

The shock wave. Those last words. What the Creator’s daughter had done. What she had sacrificed. What they had _all_ sacrificed. And the rest of its Lions… lost. Forever.

This wasn’t the time to grieve. There would be time enough once the Paladin was safe.

But Black was exhausted, and it would need to repair and recharge itself soon--and it couldn’t do that and keep itself on a safe flight path _and_ keep the Paladin alive all at once. Should it try and land on the blue planet? On its moon? Should it risk sending out a distress signal? It didn’t sense any hostiles in the area, but…

Something caught Black by the tail.

Black’s first instinct was to fight, but it quickly became clear that whatever had it meant no harm. Its grip was strong and it pulled steadily backwards, easing Black down to a gentle cruising speed.

 _“Gotcha!”_ Black heard a voice--a human, _familiar_ voice--say. It sounded like… like Yellow’s. But it couldn’t have been. Yellow’s Paladin was--

“Easy there, big guy...” Something settled on Black’s back and held on, carefully steadying its flight. Was that _Blue’s?_ What was happening?

And now Black felt them--Yellow still holding it by the tail, Red on its back, helping steer it (and what was _Blue’s_ Paladin doing in Red, anyway?), and somewhere nearby it could feel Blue and Green standing ready, and for a moment Black thought that somehow its Lions had managed to escape, somehow managed to find their Paladins even though--

But they weren’t Black’s Lions.

They felt similar. Black could feel the Creator’s touch in them, and when they reached out to Black they clearly felt the same. They seemed confused, but on some level they had some idea what must have happened.

And then Black felt another, straight ahead of it.

Black couldn’t see whatever it was, and it didn’t want to risk diverting any more power from life support than it had to, but it could _feel,_ and what it felt was impossibly familiar. Different, in some ways--it had clearly taken a different evolutionary path, but...

Black routed just enough power to its forward sensors to bring them back online. It had to know. It had to see.

It was another Black.

“Good catch, guys.” And that… that was definitely Red’s. The half-Galra. In that other Black. What was going on here? “Let’s get him home.”

Home.

That sounded good.

Black tried to relay the idea of _home_ to the Paladin. He was barely conscious, maybe barely _alive,_ but he understood.

 _I heard them,_ he thought, with something like a humorless laugh. _We didn’t make it, did we?_

His mind went quiet.

 

* * *

 

What was clear: they’d recovered an unidentified craft that looked like a Black Lion, with one weak life sign on board--human or close enough for Garrison work that their priority was to get that person off that craft and to Medical on the double.

What wasn’t clear: what exactly that craft was. Sure, it _looked_ like a Lion. It _felt_ like a Lion, at least that’s what the Paladins seemed to think based on their Lions’ reaction to it. If Alfor had built a second Black Lion, this was certainly the first Allura had heard of it but if it wasn’t an actual Black Lion, then what the hell was it?

And that bit of uncertainty was currently generating a lot more red tape than Shiro was in any mood to deal with right now. Apparently, he wasn’t authorized to touch that Lion. Neither were any of the Paladins. Not without Iverson’s okay.

God, he couldn’t fault anyone or anything for any of this; Iverson was the next rung down from Sanda on the seniority ladder after all and sure, there was some doubt about whether the second Black Lion was really what it looked like but… Shiro had hoped the man would be easier to work with after everything that’d happened.

Maybe someday Iverson would mellow out a little, but today was clearly not that day and there was a human being in that Lion who needed immediate medical attention.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Shiro said, “but it was my understanding that anything to do with Voltron fell under _my_ command.”

“That’s right,” Iverson replied. “And once we’ve established that this thing is what it looks like, it’s all yours. Until then, nobody touches it without my permission. Not you, not your Paladins, _nobody._ ”

“You really think someone went to the trouble of building a fake Black Lion _and_ a teludav just to screw with us? Come on. What are the chances of that?”

“Non-zero.”

Shiro shook his head. “Sure, you can build something that _looks_ like a Lion. It might even be good enough to fool _us,_ but it’s not going to fool our _Lions._ And anyone who knows enough about them to build a fake that looks that good? They’d _know_ that.”

“All I’m saying is, we don’t know where this thing came from or who was flying it and until we do, I’m not taking any chances. Speaking of who’s flying it, how the hell do we get the medics through that barrier to get the pilot out?”

“You send someone it trusts in first.” Shiro shrugged. “It’d probably respond to either me or Keith. _If_ we had your permission. _Sir.”_

“...shit.” Iverson rubbed his forehead. “All right. Fine.”

* * *

 

Maybe the rest of the Paladins weren’t allowed to go poke on the new Lion themselves, but Iverson couldn’t very well kick them out of their own hangar. So Hunk and Lance stood there, just far enough outside the security cordon around the second Black Lion to keep from getting yelled at.

“So…” Hunk stared up at the second Black Lion’s dark eyes. “It can’t be a fake Lion, can it? I mean… it _can_ I guess but...”

“No way.” Lance shook his head. “Ours would have known something was up, right? They would have said something. Or, well… not _said_ something but… y’know.”

“Right… so who do you think it is?”

“I dunno. Another Shiro?”

“Or another Keith?”

“God, no. Please. One is enough.” Lance watched the one they already had walk up to the other Black Lion. “Maybe it’s Sven.”

“Who?”

“C’mon, you remember Sven, right? Looks like Shiro but like...with a really weird accent and a mullet? Hanging out with Slav in that alternate reality, the one with the evil Alteans and shit? Maybe he found the Black Lion in _that_ reality after he got out of Space Hospital or whatever...”

“Oh right, _him.”_ Hunk snickered. “Uh… what if it’s Zarkon? That’d be wild.”

“Oh _hell_ no! One of _him_ was more than enough!”

“No, I mean like he was before he turned evil. Cool Zarkon.”

“Yeah, still _hell_ no. Besides, it’s human, whoever it is.”

 

* * *

 

If there was one thing Keith had learned, it was that marching up to a Lion of Voltron and yelling “hello, I am your Paladin, let me in” at it didn’t work. And maybe Black didn’t have nearly as much attitude as Red did, but the fact remained that this wasn’t _his_ Black and he wasn’t its Paladin.

No, Lance would be way too relieved to know that whoever was in this thing, it definitely wasn’t another one of him. He could tell _that_ much just standing here on the ground. It wasn’t another Shiro, either.

The second Black Lion didn’t let him in. Not right away, anyway. It took some convincing, and who better to do that than his own Lion? They were parked face to face, Keith’s sitting up and the second sprawled weakly on the floor, barrier up.

And they were talking to each other.

It was as if he was watching two people talk on the other side of a soundproof window--lip-reading a word or part of a sentence now and then, noticing some bit of body language, catching just enough of the conversation to have some vague idea what was being discussed but not enough to really understand.

But it seemed to go well enough. The other Black dropped its barrier, lowered its head, and opened its mouth to let him in.

It was dark inside, and eerily quiet. The air in the cargo hold was thick and hot, but Keith could hear the life support system running--this Black probably had just enough power left to keep it running in the cockpit. It felt familiar in here, and at the same time it didn’t. Something about… for lack of better terms, the flow of energy inside. Of course the way the Lions evolved had a lot to do with the Paladins they chose, and that familiar-yet-not energy made Keith wonder who, if not him or Shiro, this Lion had chosen.

It felt like this Lion knew him better than it should. A _lot_ better than it should. Sure, his Lion probably told it some things, but that’s not what this felt like. It felt like the Lion knew him _personally._ Like they’d met before.

It touched his mind now and then as he made his way towards the cockpit, light and curious, and Keith could feel a strange mixture of confusion and something else in those touches. Relief? Was that it? Hard to say, but that was what it felt like.

He thought of Shiro and the response was even weirder. It didn’t know him. It’d never met him. But somehow it knew _of_ him.

The cockpit was slightly more comfortable, but just as dark and just as creepy. Worse, actually, because there was someone here. Keith could hear ragged breathing from the general direction of the pilot seat; he opened his mouth to call out to the pilot but his foot hit something and he looked down and saw--

“Oh _shit!”_

When he looked down all he could see was a humanoid hand that looked for all the world like it was going for his ankle, and just for a hot half a second he was certain that this Black had been infested with--with some kind of crystal venom thing that made it _grow a hand from the floor and reach for his foot--_

“Keith?” came Shiro’s voice through his helmet. “What happened?”

Keith shook his head. _Well,_ he thought, _that was stupid._ “Nothing. Sorry. I just stepped on, uh…” He bent down to get a better look.

It _was_ a hand. It was most of an arm, in fact. Encased in what sure as hell looked like Black Paladin armor and at first Keith thought for sure that there was going to be an actual severed human arm inside that armor. And then he saw it spark, faint purple, where it had been severed and he wasn’t exactly sure whether that was a relief or not.. “I just stepped on an arm,” he said. “Looks like…” He picked it up and gingerly peeled back the cut-off edge of the undersuit. “Yeah. A Galra arm. Like yours. The old one, I mean.”

It was a left arm, cut off between the shoulder and elbow. Severed too cleanly--and right through that Paladin armor, no less--to be anything other than a Marmoran blade or a bayard. The angle was weird, though. “Looks like whoever it belongs to cut it off himself.”

“...the _hell.”_

“Yeah…” Whoever it belonged to... _shit._

Keith put the arm aside and made for the pilot seat. There was someone sprawled in it. Black Paladin armor. Head hanging, so Keith couldn’t see his face. Right arm dangling over the armrest, fingers brushing the floor, left arm…

Yeah, that’s what he thought.

Left arm gone, cut off between the shoulder and elbow. What was left sparked weakly now and then. Looked like the angle matched.

There was blood on his chestplate. Not an alarming amount, just a trickle, but no obvious source. That was either good or really, _really_ bad.

“Definitely cut it off himself,” Keith said, crouching down next to the pilot seat. “Hey. Can you hear me?”

The Black Paladin didn’t move. He drew a quick wheezing breath and tried to say something; the words stuck in his throat and he coughed weakly a few times. A few more drops of blood fell onto his chestplate. Well, there was the source. Definitely really, _really_ bad.

“Okay. Easy. _Easy._ ” Keith laid a hand on the Paladin’s shoulder. “I’m gonna need the medic team in here right now, the pilot’s in bad shape and I’m afraid to try and move him by myself.”

“On their way.”

“Thanks.” The Black Paladin tried to say something again, and Keith squeezed his shoulder as gently as he could. “Don’t try to talk. You’re going to be okay, the medics are--”

If it hadn’t been so damn scarily quiet inside this other Black Lion, he never would have heard the response. But the Black Paladin swallowed, drew another quick breath and then…

“Keith?”

Keith’s blood ran cold.

He knew that voice, it was barely a whisper but he _knew that voice,_ but it couldn’t be, it couldn’t, it was impossible, he was _dead,_ he’d died in the invasion, Keith had seen his name on the wall, how could he be sitting here in Black Paladin armor in the pilot seat of a Black Lion, _what the hell was happening!?_

“Keith?” That was Shiro, through his helmet. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t…” He knew he shouldn’t try to move the guy, he knew that, but he had to know for sure, he had to see… he scooted around in front of the pilot seat and carefully, so carefully, slid his fingertips under the Black Paladin’s chin and--

“Oh _hell.”_

“Talk to me, Keith. Come on.”

“It’s… he’s…” Oh God. Oh _fuck. Come on,_ he thought, _breathe, focus, you can freak out all you want later but at least keep it together until the medics get him out of here._ But he couldn’t say it. How the hell could he say it? Shiro would never believe him, hell, _he_ didn’t believe him, how could he even be seeing this? “I--I don’t know how to tell you this.” But there was no mistaking it. He took a deep breath to steady himself as he heard the footsteps of the medic team approaching. “Shiro, it’s--”

Before Keith could finish that sentence, the Black Paladin grabbed him by the wrist and choked out, in a voice just strong enough for Keith’s intercom to pick up:

_“T-Takashi’s...alive?”_

 

* * *

 

He looked different.

His hair had turned white at the temples. There was a long, pale scar that started just above his left eyebrow and angled down across his right cheek.

His left arm was gone. Most of it had been on the cockpit floor; Pidge had it in her lab now, pulling data off it to see if any of it would help explain what the hell was going on here. Medical took the rest of the metal off him before they put him in the cryopod. What was left was wrapped in clean white bandages.

His glasses were missing.

He looked like he’d put on some muscle; he was definitely thicker in the forearm and broader in the chest and shoulders than Shiro remembered.

He looked different but there was no mistaking it. It was Adam.

_Adam was alive._

Broken and barely conscious when Keith found him, but _alive._ In Black Paladin armor. Flying another Black Lion.

How the hell was _any_ of that possible? Shiro guessed there was probably some alternate reality weirdness involved here; he even had a vague idea of how and where the timeline in whatever reality Adam came from might have diverged from the timeline in this one, but…

The odds of a wormhole opening up in a reality where Adam had survived and then spitting him out into a reality that had an Adam-shaped hole in it…

It wasn’t an accident. It _couldn’t_ have been an accident.

He hadn’t been carrying anything in the way of ID. Or anything else, really. Nothing but a ring on a chain around his neck; Medical had given it to Shiro to hang on to. It was a simple black titanium band. No stones, no inlays, nothing fancy, nothing engraved on the inside.

Shiro tried it on, out of sheer curiosity. It fit his left ring finger perfectly.

He sat there staring at it on his finger for a while. Then he quickly took it off, put it back on its chain, and tucked it into his pocket. He could think about that later. This was neither the time nor the place.

But if that _was_ a wedding ring, and it was _his…_ then why did Adam have it?

“What do you think his bayard looks like?” Keith asked, somewhere behind him. “Obviously he can do a blade with it, I mean...” He motioned to his left shoulder.

“Yeah, maybe if he had to, but he wasn’t--he’s not really a sword guy. Quarterstaff, maybe. He liked--he _likes--_ ” He shook his head. “I _just_ started getting used to talking about him in the past tense and now he’s… he’s right here. He’s alive. He’s going to be okay.”

“Shiro…” Keith put a hand on his shoulder, and right away he knew he wasn’t going to like the turn this conversation was about to take. “If he’s really a Black Paladin… you know what that means.”

“I know.”

“He might--” Keith reached out and laid a hand on the cold glass  “He might have to go back to wherever he came from.”

“I don’t want him to.”

“I don’t either.” Keith stepped back. “I miss him too. It’s not fair. It _sucks._ ”

“Yeah it does. _”_ Shiro’s phone buzzed in his pocket, startling him. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, swiped left, and shoved it back in his pocket.

“Who was that?”

“Nothing important.” Shiro shook his head. “It can wait. Heard anything from Pidge yet?”

“No.” Keith pulled the two chairs in the room closer to the cryopod and sat in one of them. “If you want to go check with her, I can stay with him.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Shiro said, sitting down in the other chair. “Not while he’s in there.”

“At least go get something to eat or some coffee or something, you’ve been in here all day.”

“I haven’t--” Shiro looked at his phone again. And cringed a little. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe I _will_ go get some food. And talk to Pidge.”

“I won’t let anyone do anything stupid while you’re gone,” Keith said. “Promise.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro really did mean to get some actual food, but nothing in the hospital cafeteria sounded good, the chow hall was closed, and he didn’t have the energy (or the time) to go hunt something down in town. So he grabbed a few things out of a vending machine--something that had peanut butter and thus some protein in it and a couple of things with stuff that maybe used to be actual fruit in them. While he was getting a cup of black vending machine coffee to wash it all down he couldn’t help but think of the look Adam would give him if he could see this.

“Sorry, baby,” Shiro whispered as he took his coffee out of the machine. “I promise I’ll eat a vegetable tomorrow.”

Pidge’s lab was close enough to the hospital that Shiro figured he could take a quick trip over there to see how things were going, so he did.

He was never going to get used to Pidge’s organization system… or apparent near-total lack thereof. She knew where everything was, because of course she did, but good _God._ The place always looked like a bomb had gone off in it--a bomb whose payload consisted of miscellaneous electronic components, clumps and clusters of sticky notes in assorted neon colors on every surface, snacks, and for some reason Shiro remembered her explaining but couldn’t exactly recall right now, one rubber duck.

“Hey,” she said when Shiro walked in, like she’d been expecting him. “I was just about to call you. You’re not going to believe this.”

“At this point I’ll believe just about anything,” Shiro said, picking his way around Pidge’s obstacle course of a lab to the workbench where she currently had Adam’s Galra arm hooked up to her laptop. “What’d you find?”

“Well, let’s start with the hardware.” Pidge pulled up some things that looked like schematics. “He’s right-handed, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Shiro said.

“That’s what I figured--I mean yeah, statistically likely and all but y’know. His arm is pretty much the same as your Galra arm was, except it’s his _left,_ and it looks like it’s built more for defense. See, check _that_ out...”

“Whoa.” Shiro leaned forward to get a better look. “That looks like a shield generator.”

“Yep. Looks pretty tough, too. I haven’t actually gotten it to _work_ yet, but I’ll pull it out and mess with it once I’m done getting all the data off and we start fixing it up for him.”

“Fixing it up?”

“Well, yeah. He’s going to need it back, right? So I talked to Allura, we’re going to scrape all the Galra crap out of it and fix it up with Altean tech for him. Kinda like she did with your arm, except this is going to be cool because this time we’ve got the actual Galra arm to start with--” Pidge held up a hand. “We’re not going to do anything crazy. Okay, we _might_ do something crazy but it’ll be good crazy, honest. Mostly we just want to tear all the Galra stuff out of it because, well… actually I’ll get to that in a second but look at this.” She pulled some more stuff up. Coordinates? They looked familiar, where had--

“Wait.” Shiro tapped the screen. “That’s… those look like the coordinates Ulaz left in _my_ arm!”

“Yep. I had to pull the stuff we got off _your_ arm up to double check but… it’s the same coordinates. Loaded in his arm at the exact same time they were loaded in yours.”

“What the _hell,”_ Shiro whispered.

“I _know._ There’s a whole _bunch_ of data on here that’s exactly the same as the stuff we got off your arm and I mean _exactly,_ right down to checksums and timestamps. It’s kinda creepy, honestly. And it gets creepier. I went looking for some of the stuff _I_ put on your arm. And it’s there… sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of?’ It’s either there or it’s not, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah. It’s there. But I didn’t write that code. _Matt_ did _._ Trust me, I can tell.”

“This is wild,” Shiro said.

“And here’s the _really_ creepy part. Right before his arm got, uh… disconnected from his nervous system…” Pidge made a face and shuddered a little. “Sorry, I just… _ugh._ anyway. See this?”

“Yeah, but I have no idea what it means.”

“Right here… and here… those are remote access attempts. Basically… someone or something was trying to get into his arm. This stuff goes, um… pretty deep into his nervous system, you probably know that though…”

Shiro swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“Yeah… well, I could be wrong but it sure looks like whoever or whatever was trying to get into his arm was trying to get into his _head_. Maybe trying to control him.”

They were both quiet for a minute. Shiro eyed the arm on Pidge’s workbench. It didn’t move. It looked perfectly harmless. Shiro knew better--from experience that was all too personal. “Well… that’d explain why he cut it off,” he said.

“Ugh.” Pidge shuddered again. “I don’t even want to think about it. So uh… yeah, that’s why we’re going to gut it and rebuild it before we send him…” She looked up, and Shiro must have been making some kind of a face. “Before we give it back to him,” she finished instead.

So... she thought he needed to go back too.

Shiro almost said something about that and decided he didn’t have the energy to try and debate her on it. So he left it at “thanks, Pidge, keep me posted" and headed out.

 

* * *

 

Hunk and Lance were both on the fence about sending Adam back to wherever he came from.

They knew _something_ terrible must have happened to him on the other side of that weird wormhole. They’d caught him, after all, they saw just how bad a shape his Lion was in. They knew that explosion that collapsed the wormhole must have meant something, too.

But they also knew if Adam did have four Paladins waiting on him back home, well...

Lance and Keith bickered like an old married couple but at the end of the day, if Keith and Black were to just up and disappear through a wormhole, Lance would stop at absolutely _nothing_ to get him back. And Hunk was just torn up about the whole situation. There wasn’t a clear solution that would work out for the best for everyone involved and he _hated_ it. He hated that sending Adam back could mean sending him back into grave danger, and he hated that keeping Adam here would leave his Paladins without a Black Lion.

It seemed like _everyone_ thought sending Adam back where he came from would be the least awful thing to do. And yeah, Shiro knew if he _did_ have a team of Paladins missing him, they needed their leader back. Or at least his Lion. Couldn’t they find someone else to fly it, though? Did it really have to be Adam? This bunch had done fine without _him_ in Black’s pilot seat, after all. Couldn’t they just send his Lion back?

And if they _had_ to send Adam back… could he go too? They could find another captain for the _Atlas,_ couldn’t they?

No, Shiro knew that wasn’t going to be an option.

 _Keith is right,_ he thought. _This isn’t fair. It sucks._

And it just made him that much more afraid to leave the cryopod ward.

For the next two days he ate nothing that didn’t come from a vending machine or the short-order line at the hospital cafeteria. He kept that promise to eat a vegetable, but only technically--potatoes were a vegetable, right? Did it matter if they were cut into sticks and deep-fried? He slept in a chair next to Adam’s cryopod and woke up with his neck reminding him in the rudest possible way that he wasn’t a teenager anymore and he couldn’t just sleep on any old piece of furniture in any old position and not expect to wake up with _something_ bitching about it. He saw the inside of his quarters once in that time, for only as long as it took to shower and shave and change into a clean uniform. He had to leave a few times to handle some briefings and some administrative bullshit here and there, and he couldn’t focus on any of it. He was terrified that he’d finish up with that and come back to the hospital to find Adam’s cryopod empty and then find the second Black Lion gone from the hangar. Of course he was still there. He wasn’t going anywhere until he woke up and got his arm back and his Lion was ready to fly, at least; certainly not until they could figure out exactly how he’d gotten here in the first place and what it would take to send him back, but…

Shiro hadn’t exactly gotten any warning the _last_ time they sent Adam on a mission he wouldn’t come back from, had he?

If they were that damn determined to send Adam back, then Shiro was equally determined to spend every second he could by Adam’s side. If that meant living off vending machine food and sleeping in a chair and waking up with a crick in his neck, fine.

Not that he was sleeping much anyway since they’d gotten back to Earth. And even when he did fall asleep, the slightest noise would jar him awake. Like the sound of the pod ward door opening that afternoon.

“I’m sorry,” Allura said as the door closed behind her. “I didn’t mean to startle you, but I just came from the hangar. If that Lion is a fake, it’s a _perfect_ one.”

“It’s okay.” Shiro sat up and rubbed sleep out of his eyes. “Iverson actually let you near it?”

“He did. He wanted to ask me about... “ She shook her head. “I went to take a look at that Lion. I don’t have the sort of bond with the Black Lion that you and Keith do, but… it knew me. It seemed a little confused to see me, too. Confused and…”

“Relieved?” Shiro offered, and she nodded. “That’s what Keith said it thought about him.”

Allura pulled up the other chair in the room and sat down next to Shiro. “It’s a real Lion. I’m sure of it. But I’ve gone through everything we sent Sam back with, everything we could save from the Castle, everything the Blue Lion knows and there’s _nothing_ about my father building a second Voltron, or even planning it.”

“Even if he did build that Lion, that doesn’t explain how Adam ended up in the pilot seat. So… alternate reality?”

“That’s the only explanation left that makes _any_ sense,” Allura said, and Shiro couldn’t help but snort out a laugh at the thought of “alternate reality” being the _most_ plausible explanation for anything. “It would explain why that wormhole looked so odd, too.” She glanced over at him. He didn’t look back. “How long have you been in here?”

“Since they put him in the cryopod, pretty much.”

“He’s important to you, isn’t he?”

 _More than anyone,_ Shiro wanted to say. Instead, he just nodded.

“It’ll be a while yet before he’s ready to wake up,” Allura said, hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “You should get some rest.”

He shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said, and, well… Allura knew better than to argue with him on that, even if they both knew he was absolutely not fine.

They sat there in silence for a while.

“You… you know he has to go back.” Allura said, and Shiro felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. “Wherever he came from, he has to go back.”

“Everyone keeps saying that, but how are you all so sure about it? Him being here isn’t an accident,” Shiro countered. “You saw what kind of shape his Lion is in, hell, you can see what kind of shape _he’s_ in, for all we know-- ”

“What we know is that there’s a Voltron out there somewhere that’s missing its Black Lion. Shiro, I’m sorry but you know that too. You know his Paladins need him.”

That was hard to argue with.

“I hate this,” Shiro said instead of trying, and Allura squeezed his shoulder. “You have no idea how much _I hate this.”_

“I know. I’m sorry.” She sighed. “And I’m sorry about what we have to do. The longer he stays here… we need to know what he knows and we can’t wait for him to wake up.”

Shiro did look up at her then. She couldn’t really be suggesting… to one of their own people…

“You want to extract his memories,” he said. “Like we did with Sendak. _No._ That’s _not happening.”_

“Shiro, please listen--”

“I said _no,”_ Shiro repeated through his teeth. “Even if you’re right about us needing to send him back, he’s _hurt._ He needs to rest. Is it really going to make that much difference for us to just wait a few days for him to wake up and _ask him_ how he got here?”

“A few days could make _all_ the difference to the Paladins he left behind! To everyone who’s depending on them! And what if he doesn’t remember when he wakes up? What then?”

“Then you can _ask him_ before you start digging memories out of his brain!” Shiro shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you, of all people!”

“And I can’t believe I’m having it with _you!_ You’re putting _one person_ above the lives of countless--”

“This is not okay and _you know it.”_ Shiro said, low and warning. “This is not how we operate. The last time we used this thing on someone without their permission, it was on our _enemy._ Adam’s not our enemy, he’s one of _us!_ At least have the common decency to wait a couple of days and let _him_ decide whether or not to go through with this!”

“Someone else already made that decision for us,” Allura said. “I’m sorry. He just asked me to tell you. He thought you might take it better coming from me.”

Shiro clenched his teeth.

Looked like today wasn’t the day Iverson was going to mellow out, either.

 

* * *

 

Automatic sliding doors took a lot of the satisfaction out of bursting unannounced into someone’s office to read them the riot act. You couldn’t slam them open or closed. You could mash, slap, or punch the panel as hard as you wanted, but it didn’t make the door open or shut any more dramatically.

But Altean space magic metal prosthetic arms with superhuman strength and no need to actually be physically attached to their owner’s body put that satisfaction right back in.

Iverson saw Shiro coming and probably had some idea what was he was in for, because he called “no, Captain, not now,” out the door and tried to shut it in Shiro’s face. And he would have been fast enough if both of Shiro’s hands had been physically attached to him. But that right hand shot ahead of him, seized the edge of the door, clamped down on it hard enough to buckle the metal, and slammed it back into its pocket in the wall like it was made of cardboard.

Shiro heard _something_ make some Godawful grinding wrenching metal-on-metal noise inside the wall when he did that and that… oh, _that_ was satisfying as hell.

“Yes, Admiral,” he growled. “ _Now.”_

Iverson didn’t move. His gaze flicked from Shiro’s eyes, to the hand still clenched around the edge of his now-disabled door, and back again a few times.

“Shirogane, what the _fuck_.”

Shiro couldn’t stop one corner of his mouth from twitching ever so slightly upward. Wasn’t the first time Iverson had said that to him, almost certainly wouldn’t be the last, but this was the first time Shiro could ever remember him saying it in _that_ tone of voice.

“All right,” Iverson finally sighed. “Fine. Come in. Close the door. ...if it’ll still close. And that’s coming out of your paycheck.”

“Worth it.” Shiro gave the door a yank. The door resisted. But this time, the wrenching metal-on-metal noise gave way to the sound of something snapping and ricocheting off the inside of the wall. And then the door stopped resisting and slid mostly shut.

“Look,” Iverson said, “I know what this is about. Your objections are noted. We’re still going through with it.”

“You haven’t even _heard_ my objections yet,” Shiro informed him. “Mind if I run through them real quick just to make sure you’ve got the right ones down?”

“No need. I can guess what they all boil down to, and I’m sorry but your _personal attachment_ to Commander Wolf doesn’t figure into--”

“That’s at the bottom of the list. Let me start at the top. I can’t think of a procedure much more invasive than having your memories pulled straight out of your brain, can you? And you want to subject a Garrison officer to that _without his consent._ ”

Iverson thought about that for a bit. “All right, that’s a fair point but if it were your Paladins and _their_ Black Lion just up and disappeared into a wormhole one day, would _you_ want whoever was on the other end of it to sit around scratching their butts for three or four days waiting for Keith to wake up when they could just hook up a machine and find out what they need to do to send him back here?”

“Yes, I actually would prefer they wait until they can _ask him if he wants that done._ Again, you’re missing the whole _without his consent_ part.”

“Fine.” Iverson rubbed his forehead, as if to ward off a headache. “Then that’s the first thing we’ll ask him. If he says no we’ll shut it down.”

“You’re going to do this in real time?” Shiro raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see any way _that_ could go horribly wrong.”

“You want to dial the sarcasm back there, Captain?”

“No. And that ties in with another objection. I’m not seeing a whole lot of concern from _anyone_ who thinks this is a good idea about his mental state once you’re done interrogating him.”

“This isn’t an _interrogation_! It’s just--”

“His Lion is badly damaged. He’s seriously injured. He cut his Galra arm off, and the data Pidge pulled off it points toward him doing that because someone was trying to c _ontrol him_ through it. And that’s just what we know for sure. We don’t have a clue what led up to any of that, but if his path to wearing that armor and flying that Lion was anything like mine I guarantee you’re going to dig up some _deeply traumatic shit,_ pardon my _language--”_ Shiro leaned on that last word hard enough to remind Iverson of his own minor indiscretion a minute ago-- “a whole bunch of it, all at once. And then you want to just… put him back in his Lion and send him home and have that be the end of it? Are you not seeing a potential problem here? If you’re not going to think of him, think of his Paladins, since you and Allura seem so worried about how _they’re_ doing without him. How effective a leader do you think he’s going to be while he’s dealing with _that_ kind of emotional fallout?”

“You seem like a pretty effective leader to me and _you’ve_ seen more than your fair share of deeply traumatic shit,” Iverson pointed out.

“I had a flashback and ended up _kicking the anesthesiologist in the face_ when he tried to put me under for this,” Shiro held up his right hand. “And I _wanted_ this done.”

Iverson sighed. “Would you feel better if you could be in the room while we do it?”

“I would feel better if you didn’t do it _at all,”_ Shiro said. “But if you’re that damn determined to do it, then I’m going to be in the room whether you want me there or not.”

“Fine with me,” Iverson said, to Shiro’s surprise. “I’d actually prefer it if you would. He might be more willing to talk to you. Besides, you know him better than anyone. You’ll know if we’re pushing him too hard.”

“And if I tell you to back off, will you actually do it? Or are you just going to _note my objections_ and keep going?”

Iverson shrugged. “That depends on--look. We’re going to do what we can to minimize the risks. All we need to know is, how did he get here and how can we get him home?”

“Yeah, that’s my next objection,” Shiro said.

“Now see, _there’s_ your personal attachment talking--”

“No, this is my concern for _his safety_ talking _._ Possibly _our_ safety, _all of us,_ this whole reality. You’re so sure he needs to go back that you’re not stopping to consider the possibility that he was sent here, or at least sent away from his own reality, because it was too dangerous for him to stay there.”

“Come on, you’ve been in his position, _what are the chances_ of him getting separated from his team and _not_ needing to get back to them ASAP?”

_“Non-zero.”_

“Look. I get it, all right? It’d be great if he _could_ stay here, God knows we could use him back in this reality.” Iverson scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “What happened to him was a damn shame. It really was.”

That muscle in Shiro’s jaw twitched again.

“You’re really going to sit there and talk about what happened to him like you didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said, and Iverson pushed back from his desk, both hands up.

“Now hang on! _Sanda_ gave that order--”

“Sanda might have given the order, but _you_ carried it out.”

“For fuck’s sake, Shirogane! I walk past that wall every morning and every evening, you think I don’t think about it _every goddamn day?_ I _know_ it was a bad call. I should have listened to Commander Holt when _he_ said it was a bad call, and if I could go back and change that--”

“So you’ll understand when I tell you that I don’t trust you to make _any_ decision that could put him in danger again.” Shiro leaned down, palms on Iverson’s desk. “Now that... _that_ is my personal attachment to Commander Wolf talking.”

“Be in the pod ward at 0900,” Iverson finally said. “And don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro meant to go straight back to the pod ward after that. But before he opened the door, he looked through the window and saw Allura and Coran in there, setting up what could only be the memory extraction hardware.

And at this point, he was afraid that if either of them said anything to him, he was going to snap. So instead, he turned around and went back to his quarters.

He slept worse in his own bed than he had in that chair next to Adam’s cryopod.

 

* * *

 

Shiro did not expect the pod ward to be this full of people when he showed up the next morning. Iverson would be there, of course. He figured Allura would have to run the memory extraction system, and he guessed Sam would probably be there monitoring Adam’s vitals--even though that wasn’t really his area of expertise, he was the only person Shiro knew of with a high enough security clearance and a basic understanding of what to watch out for--and Shiro figured that would be it. He definitely didn’t expect the room to be full of Paladins.

“What’s going on?” he asked Iverson. “Do they really need to be here?”

Iverson shrugged. “They’re not _his_ Paladins but I figured they might help convince him why we need to know what he knows. Besides, you said you didn’t trust me to make the final decision on this, so I thought you’d appreciate _their_ input.”

“Sorry, Shiro,” Keith said. “Like I said… I don’t want him to go back either, none of us really do but…”

“If it was us missing _our_ Black Lion…” Lance scratched at the back of his head. “We’d… well… yeah.”

_Shit._

“Let’s start it up, then,” Iverson said.

They’d decided to do this in real time, which meant they needed a way for Adam to communicate with them in real time, which meant a hologram generator. Which meant a full-scale hologram of Adam in Black Paladin armor, standing next to the cryopod containing the real unconscious Adam.

It was… unsettling.

“All right,” Allura said. “He should be able to hear you now. Go ahead.”

Iverson nodded. “Commander Wolf?”

Adam’s hologram didn’t say anything for a while. He looked like he didn’t know what was going on but whatever it was, he definitely didn’t like it.

“What’s happening?” he finally said. “Who’s--wait, is that Iverson?”

“Adam…” Shiro had to swallow hard before he could get anything else out, _God,_ even if it was just a hologram seeing Adam up and talking was almost too much. “Yeah. It was. You’re at Garrison Medical. You’re safe. You’re on Earth.”

 _“...Takashi!?_ I--I can’t see anything, I don’t-- _”_

Iverson cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt but we have some important questions for you, Commander. First…” He sighed. “I have been _advised_ that there might be some ethical issues with extracting your memories without your permission.”

“Extracting my memories!? _What the hell is going on?_ Takashi? Why can’t I see you? Where’s my Lion?”

“Let me handle this,” Shiro said, and Iverson stepped back, hands up. “You were hurt pretty bad when we found you, so you’re asleep in a cryopod. But your Lion is safe. It’s hurt, but it’s safe and I’ll _personally_ take you to see it when you wake up if you want. We’re using a memory extraction device to talk to you, and _I am not okay with that_ but unfortunately--”

“We just want to ask you some questions about how you ended up here.” Iverson said. “Do we have your permission to continue?”

“This feels weird. It feels _wrong._ “ Adam’s hologram flickered. Was he scowling? He looked like he might be. “Like it’s digging around in my head. Making me think about things I don’t want to think about.”

“All right,” Shiro said. “You heard him. Shut it off.”

Iverson ignored him. “I’m sorry we have to do it this way, Commander. But we have reason to believe a lot of lives may depend on us knowing what you know, and the sooner the better. It’ll be a few days before you wake up, and by then it might be too late.”

Shiro glared at him. “What the hell was that?” he hissed, low enough that hopefully Adam wouldn’t hear.

“He didn’t say ‘no,’ did he?” Iverson whispered back.

Adam was silent for a while.

“I don’t like this,” he finally said. “But if it’s that important...okay.” Adam was definitely scowling now, even in the cryopod he was scowling. _“Get it over with.”_

Iverson sighed. “Commander, I understand you’ve had a rough time but let me remind you that I am still your superior officer and I would appreciate--”

“Oh good grief,” Sam said quietly. “He’s seriously injured and unconscious in a cryopod, is this _really_ the hill you want to die on right now?”

Nobody was quite brave enough to actually say anything out loud to that, but… _wow._

Hunk just stared in awe.

Keith and Lance exchanged a look--Lance with his eyes wide and mouth half-open, Keith biting his lip and shaking his head _no,_ probably as in _don’t say it,_ _don’t you dare say it, at least not out loud while he’s standing right there but definitely say it to me later because_ damn, _sir._

Shiro caught Pidge’s eye. She turned away and coughed unconvincingly. Shiro bit his tongue.

“All right, all right, fair enough. Let’s start with this, then.” Iverson looked very much like he wanted a stiff drink or three, and Shiro didn’t particularly blame him, but at the same time… well, this _was_ how he wanted to run this show, wasn’t it? “How exactly did you end up flying a Black Lion?”

“It’s a long story,” Adam said. “I’ll give you the short version. Got captured by hostile aliens on a mission to Kerberos, escaped, got back to Earth where _someone_ in this room thought it would be a good idea to strap me to a damn table--”

“Wait--” Keith sat up. “Adam, _you_ flew the Kerberos mission?”

Adam didn’t answer that right away.

“Keith?” he finally said. “You’re...you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Keith said. “You seemed kind of surprised to see me in your Lion though.”

“I thought I was hallucinating. Wait, if you’re here… is Lance here too?”

“I’m here,” Lance replied. “Hunk too, in case you’re wondering. So’s Pidge. And Allura.”

“Katie?” Adam frowned a little. “Where’s Matt?”

“You actually just missed him by a couple days,” Pidge said. “He’s with the rebels but he swings by Earth when he can. But he went on the Kerberos mission with you, right?”

No, of course he didn’t, he showed up with Lance and Hunk to--wait. This is a trick, isn’t it?” Adam scowled. “Yeah. This is… this is exactly the kind of crap Haggar would pull. I’m not falling for it. Nice try, though. You almost had me for a minute there.”

“Adam, listen to me--” Shiro knew perfectly well Adam couldn’t feel it, but he couldn’t help it. He laid his hand on the cold glass of the cryopod. “This isn’t a trick. You’re not dreaming. It’s really me. It’s really them. I promise in a day or two you’re going to wake up and you can see for yourself. If you don’t believe me…” He thought for a second. “If you don’t believe me, try and talk to your Lion. It’s not in great shape right now, but it’ll probably still respond to you. And you’ll know if it’s not really your Lion talking. Just try it, okay?”

Adam’s hologram stood still for a minute, eyes closed.

“Okay,” he finally said. He opened his eyes. “Okay. I’m still not completely convinced this is real and it could still be Haggar back on her bullshit again but on the off chance it’s not… Takashi, you should ask the kids to leave. I don’t want them to hear this.”

Keith and Lance exchanged a look, and Shiro watched that unspoken conversation take place--it looked something like _uh hang on he was surprised we’re here and he doesn’t want us to hear why, did he think we were dead? Yep, I think he thought we were dead and I don’t know if I want details._

“They’re fine,” Iverson said. “Can we get back to the Kerberos mission? Who else was on your crew?”

“I’m not really okay with talking about this in front of--” Adam--well, his hologram--shook his head. “Fine. It was me, Sam Holt--sorry, Sam, was that you a minute ago? Thanks for that--and Wade Cross.”

Lance leaned over and gently elbowed Keith. “Who?” Keith shook his head and shrugged.

“So… I didn’t go,” Shiro said.

Adam didn’t say anything for a minute.

“You were--” He stopped. Like the words were stuck in his throat. “You--you were supposed to but--” His hologram flickered. “But you--I don’t--do we have to talk about this? I don’t want to. I don’t--”

“Okay. Whoa.” Sam shook his head. “His heart rate is _way_ up, brain activity looks like--”

“He’s fighting it,” Allura said. “Wherever this is going, he doesn’t want to remember it.”

“He can do that?” Iverson asked. “He can just… not answer? I thought this was supposed to extract his memories, not just let us ask him questions he might or might not answer. Can’t you do something?” Shiro and Allura both shot him a look, and thankfully Allura was the one who spoke up first.

“Whatever it is, it’s obviously hurting him to think about it.” She gestured at the memory extraction setup. “To answer your question, it’s _possible_ to force him to answer. But I am _not_ going to do it to one of our own people. Is it really that important, anyway? Do we really need to know _why_ he flew that mission instead of Shiro?”

“I…” Iverson shook his head. “I guess not.”

“It’s okay, Adam.” Shiro’s voice was low, but not so low the rest of them couldn’t hear. “You don’t have to answer that. It’s okay. And I can probably guess what happened after you left. You all got captured by the Galra. They made you fight in the arena. They experimented on you. That’s how you lost your arm, isn’t it?”

“Y--yes. Takashi, how do you--”

“Trust me, you’ll understand when you wake up. One of the Galra helped you escape, I saw the message Ulaz left in your arm--”

“How do you know Ulaz!?”

“You came back to Earth, got strapped to a table--” and here, Shiro glared at Iverson, and much to his satisfaction Iverson squirmed a little. “And then a bunch of cadets came to save you. Except for some reason it was Matt instead of Katie, do I have that right?”

“Yes, but--”

“And then you found the Blue Lion in the desert. And it liked Lance so you all got in it, and it took you to the Castle.”

“Yes,” Adam said. “Takashi, _how the hell do you know all that?”_

“Because _I_ flew the Kerberos mission.” Shiro said. “In _this_ reality.”

“What do you mean, ‘in _this_ reality...’” Adam was quiet for a while. “You know what? That would actually explain a _lot._ ”

“Yeah,” Shiro said. “For some reason _that we’re not going to get into because you made it clear that you don’t want to talk about it,_ you flew the Kerberos mission instead of me and from there you took my place in your whole _reality._ Except things obviously didn’t all work out exactly the same way on your side as they did here.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I guess not.”

“So what we’re really asking you here is… how did they go so differently that you ended up in _another reality?”_

“Okay. I’ll explain as best I can but I’m telling you,” Adam said, and there was a low warning tone in his voice that made the hairs on the back of Shiro’s neck stand up, “I want the Paladins to _leave.”_

Shiro glanced at Iverson and raised an eyebrow.

“I’d prefer they stay,” Iverson said. “In case they have some insights the rest of us would miss.”

Sam didn’t look so sure, but he said nothing. And none of the Paladins got up.

“Suit yourselves,” Adam said. “Feel free to bail out when you’ve had enough, I won’t hold it against you.”

 

* * *

 

 _They found all the Lions. Learned to form Voltron. Became a team. Became a_ family. _Fought a couple of Robeasts, one of which Adam found way too familiar. Had a bomb go off in the Castle. Had to kick Sendak_ out _of the castle (so much easier said than done, and it left Lance in a cryopod for a couple of days and Adam with battle damage to his Galra arm that would never completely buff out). Met some rebels. Freed a Balmera. Lost Allura to the Galra, almost died getting her back (and somehow Adam ended up fighting Haggar and he honestly wasn’t sure which of the wounds she inflicted on him were worse--the magic glowing physical ones, or the mental ones from getting choked out by a thing wearing a face it had no right to wear). Tried to escape, ended up scattered across the universe._

 _Found each other, found a space mall, found the Blade of Marmora. Found out that Keith was half Galra. Rescued a scientist (and more than once, Adam found himself far too tempted to_ un- _rescue the little shit). Accidentally fell into a hole in reality, somehow managed to pull themselves back onto the right side of it. Got an idea from that, for a plan to defeat Zarkon. Almost succeeded._

_Almost._

_Zarkon was down, but not out. Not even close. But that would have to be good enough for now._

_But at least they’d found Sam, and they put him on a pod home posthaste. Earth needed to know what was coming, and there was precious little time to prepare for it. They still hadn’t found Wade, though. It was as if he’d just disappeared._

_They finally tracked him to Zarkon’s command ship through sheer luck._

_Turned out he didn’t want to be found._

_Most of the scientists the Galra captured wanted to go home. Wade didn’t. He liked his new job. He liked it a lot. All the advanced alien tech he could ever want to play with, none of that pesky ethical bullshit to hold him back. And he was all too happy to raise the alarm when an undercover Blade let Keith on board to rescue their fellow human._

_That was when everything started going to hell._

 

* * *

 

“If I ever meet this Wade guy I’m kicking his ass,” Lance said.

“For _what?”_ Keith pulled a face at him. “Being a dick in an alternate reality?”

Lance shrugged. “How do we know he’s not a dick in _this_ one?”

Keith opened his mouth to answer that, but instead just shook his head and closed it again.

 

* * *

 

 _Finally. Finally, the Red Lion was back. Adam knew this was going to be a close shave, but he still had half a mind to say a word or two to Keith about these dramatic last-second returns, because that one was_ entirely _too close. He had a good mind to say something to him about that radio silence, too; just a quick “running a little behind” would have been great._

_But when Red’s mouth opened, it wasn’t Keith who came out._

_A Galra, carrying a knife like Keith’s. He very slowly knelt and placed it on the ground, then stood up, making sure to show his empty hands. “My name is Thace,” he said. “I’m with the Blade of Marmora.”  He was quiet for a long moment. “There were complications. I’m not familiar with your customs so…” He shook his head. “I brought him back to you. I’m sorry.”_

_And all at once Adam understood exactly what he was saying._

_Even worse: so did Lance._

_“Lance,_ no!” _Adam tried to grab him, tried to hold him back, tried to tell him_ wait, let me go in first, it’s my responsibility, just wait out here _but it was no use, he was just too damn_ fast _and by the time Adam could catch up to him he had already found Keith there on the floor of the cockpit, swaddled in a thin emergency blanket because there hadn’t been anything else to cover his body with._

 _Adam held it together because he was the leader, because he was the_ adult _, because Hunk and Matt needed him to, because Lance_ desperately _needed him to, because Lance needed someone steady to hang on to while he screamed about how this wasn’t right, this wasn’t fair, this wasn’t supposed to happen, nobody was supposed to die and it goddamn fucking sure wasn’t supposed to be Keith, Keith was actually good at this and he was just a cargo pilot that got a lucky break and thought he was hot shit and if he hadn’t poked on the fucking Lion none of this would have happened, it was all his fault--_

 

* * *

 

Shiro didn’t realize just how focused he was on Adam’s story until he heard some kind of a weird little strangled noise behind him, followed by the sound of a chair falling over and someone bolting for the door.

“Lance? Hey--”

“I’ve got him,” Keith said, and followed him out into the hall. Iverson watched them, and Shiro watched Iverson until the door shut again.

Through the window, he could see Lance collapse into one of the hard plastic chairs in the hall outside the pod ward, head in his hands, shoulders trembling. Then he stood back up and paced around for a while. Then back into the chair. Then up again. Keith just sat there in his own hard plastic chair, not talking to him, not trying to touch him, just… being there. Which, Shiro supposed, was exactly what Lance needed him to do.

Iverson watched them as well. He seemed a little rattled. Spooked, even.

“You’re the one who wanted them in here,” Shiro reminded him. “Still think that’s a good idea?”

Iverson didn’t answer that.

Out in the hall, Lance flopped back into his chair. Keith _did_ say something that time, something that managed to coax a laugh out of Lance, and Shiro let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said. “I wish I could tell you that’s the worst part.”

 

* * *

 

_They got lucky that time. Red found itself a new Paladin pretty much immediately; it had let Thace fly it back from Zarkon’s ship, and it decided it wanted to keep him._

_But Lance was never really the same after that._

_He tried to keep up appearances at first, of course he did, but it was obviously an act and not a convincing one so he just gave up on it. Now every second of downtime he had, he spent on the training deck. Actually training._

_At first Adam thought maybe if nothing else, he was taking this Paladin stuff a lot more seriously now that he understood on such a deeply personal level just how high the stakes could be (and_ God _Adam wished that wasn’t a lesson he had to learn, that it wasn’t a lesson_ any _of them had to learn, but here they were), and that in and of itself wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. But after a couple of days it became clear that this wasn’t just a newfound sense of responsibility. It was more than that. Worse than that._

_It was an obsession._

_It consumed him. It was all he thought about. It was all he did. He took a quick break to eat once in a while, when he noticed his strength fading. He slept when he absolutely couldn’t stay awake anymore--sometimes right on the floor of the training deck. And then he went right back to work. He didn’t flirt with Allura anymore. He barely said two words to anyone, in fact. And he didn’t laugh anymore. That, Adam thought, was the worst part._

_But it became clear that something was horribly wrong when his bayard started taking the shape of a sword--one exactly like Keith’s._

_Adam watched Lance take on the Gladiator robot one night, watched him tear it apart with near-surgical precision and that still wasn’t good enough for him. So he called for_ two _of them._

_“He’s good.”_

_Thace sat down next to Adam, and Adam glanced over at him. He was wearing his armor, like he’d come down here meaning to go a few rounds with a Gladiator if Lance ever decided to take a break, but… he’d changed it._

_“Purple?”_

_Thace shrugged. “I didn’t feel right wearing the red. It seemed disrespectful.”_

_They watched Lance dismantle Gladiator robots like they were cheap toys for a while. He called for Level 11. Level 12._ Two _of them. Fuck it, he said at one point, send out_ three _of them. And when had he gotten so good at switching his bayard’s form like that, anyway? From the gun to the sword and back before his opponent could react, like he wasn’t even thinking about it. Hitting them in the eyes at long range, coming in close and striking with the sword while they were blind, maybe just skipping all that and popping them right in the head with the sniper rifle if he thought he had time._

_“I hardly see him outside the training deck. Has he always been…” Thace gestured vaguely in Lance’s direction. “...like that?”_

_“No. He’s_ never _been like that. This is new. And it scares the hell out of me.” Adam leaned back against the cool, slick wall behind him and shut his eyes. “I get it. What he’s doing. What he_ thinks _he’s doing. I’ve been there.” His hand crept up to close around the ring hanging on a chain around his neck, and he shook his head. “When someone close to you dies there’s this idea you get in your head that’s like--if you can just fix everything you did wrong, the universe will realize it made a mistake and give him back. It’s stupid. But it just makes so much sense when you’re in that place. You can’t deal with the fact that they’re going to stay dead no matter what you do, so you--” He nodded in Lance’s direction._

_“It’s still fresh,” Thace said. “He’ll come around. Didn’t you?”_

_“I’m not so sure I did.” Adam rubbed his eyes in hopes of easing the eyestrain that had been threatening to turn.into a headache all day. “Thace, what the hell are we doing to these kids? They’re--they’re_ amazing, _they’re all so brave and smart and they’ve got their shit together but they’re still_ kids, _why are we asking them to put their lives on the line like this?”_

_“It’s my understanding that the Lions choose their Paladins, not the other way around.” Thace snorted a soft laugh. “I can’t say I ever imagined one of them would choose me, but here we are. They were chosen for a reason as well.”_

_“I just wish they’d chosen grown adults instead,” Adam sighed._

_Thace laid a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be all right.”_

_But he wasn’t._

_Adam tried talking to Lance himself. It was like talking to a brick wall. He tried asking Hunk to keep an eye on him and just--just to_ be there _for him, they’d always been close, right? Turned out he was already doing that, because of course he was, that was what Hunk_ did. _It wasn’t working either._

_It didn’t help that he never really got on board with Thace being part of the team, either. He could put it aside in battle but the second the coast was clear Lance was done with him, wanted nothing to do with him._

_Of course Hunk and Matt missed Keith. Of course they were grieving for him too. But at some point, they came up for air long enough to notice that Thace was actually really damn cool. Even Allura couldn’t help but notice that having someone who was obviously, visibly full-blood Galra flying a Lion and wearing a Paladin’s armor and fighting_ against _Zarkon was an especially effective bit of psychological warfare. And Adam was just glad to have another grown adult to talk to. Not that he didn’t like Coran, of course he did, but Thace understood things Coran never would._

_Lance didn’t see it that way. He bristled at Thace flying Keith’s Lion and wielding Keith’s bayard, like he was convinced Thace was trying to wipe Keith out of their memories. Which of course he wasn’t. He’d tried to sit Lance down and tell him that himself. Lance didn’t want to hear it._

He’ll come around, _Adam kept telling himself._ He’ll be okay. It’ll just take some time. He’ll snap out of it.

_But time was one thing they never had enough of, and he was taking risks in battle now. Bigger and bigger ones. More and more unnecessary ones. They always paid off but deep down, Adam knew that sooner or later he’d miscalculate._

_They_ all _cornered him for a sort of intervention after one particularly terrifying close call--all but Thace, who figured it would be best if he recused himself from this one. They begged him to please stop doing this, said if he wasn’t going to think of himself at least consider what would happen to the rest of the team if something happened to him, ask himself what Voltron was going to do without a right leg because who the hell else could fly Blue?_

_The next couple of missions, he was better. Still a little more reckless than Adam would have liked, but better. Maybe they’d gotten through to him._

_It didn’t last._

 

* * *

 

“Hey. Um. Shiro?” Hunk stood up and just sort of… backed towards the door. “I don’t… I don’t really need to be in here right now, do I? Because I see where this is going and I--I _really_ don’t like it.”

Pidge didn’t say anything to that. She didn’t need to. She was huddled up against Sam’s side, staring at the floor, and that said all that needed to be said.

“Apparently that’s not my call.” Shiro glared at Iverson. “Is there a good reason to keep these cadets in here while Commander Wolf tells us about all the horrible things that happened to them in his reality?”

Iverson swallowed loudly. “No,” he finally said. “You’re free to go.”

Shiro waved Hunk towards the door. “Go get some fresh air. See if you can find Keith and Lance, make sure they’re okay. Pidge, Allura, you can clear out too if you want. We’ll call you if we need you.”

“I need to stay,” Allura said. “For the…” She gestured at the memory extraction setup.

Shiro nodded and glanced out the window. Keith and Lance weren’t out there anymore, and he hoped they’d gone off somewhere, _anywhere,_ where they could take their mind off what they’d been hearing in here.

 

* * *

 

 _And then he finally_ did _miscalculate._

_There was no body to bring back, not this time; they couldn’t even get hold of his bayard before everything went to hell and it would be hours before any of them would have the chance to sit down and process what happened._

_Adam held it together until they were safe on the Castle because he had to, because he was the leader, because he was an adult, because Hunk and Matt needed him to._

_Once they were back on the Castle Thace gently pulled Hunk and Matt aside and talked to them for a minute, then sent them off on some kind of errand, Adam didn’t remember what. Some busywork that would keep them together and keep them occupied, because the worst thing they could do right now was go off alone somewhere with nothing to do but think about what they’d just seen. Thace sent them off with a promise that he and Adam would come fetch them in a little while so they could talk as a team about what had happened and where they had to go from here, but there were some things they needed to take care of first._

_Thace knew exactly what he was doing. Sending the kids on an errand elsewhere got them out of the room and left the adults alone and the second the door closed behind Hunk and Matt, Adam broke down._

_Thace sat right there with him the whole time, one huge hand on his back. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. He just let his presence remind Adam he wasn’t alone in this, and that was what he needed most._

_Later, Adam would realize that he wasn’t just grieving for Lance. That was certainly most of it. But later, he would look back on this and realize that this was the moment he knew, really_ knew, _that things were only going to get worse from here._

_They got lucky that time too. Blue took a liking to Allura, and for a while it seemed like maybe it might work out after all._

_But the damage was done. They weren’t the same team anymore. They weren’t even close._

_Adam swore to take this to his grave, he would never tell her,_ never, _just thinking about this ugly dark thing he couldn’t stop carrying around inside his heart made him feel sick with shame. But on some level, Adam resented Allura for dragging them all into this._

 _Two of their Paladins--two members of this whole huge found_ family, _had died in this stupid millennia-old space war before they were old enough to buy their own beer in their particular neck of the Earth woods, and for what? A handful of rebel bases spread far too thin? A scattering of liberated planets, too few and too far between to form any kind of cohesive front against Zarkon? Keith and Lance should have been back on Earth bitching and sniping at each other in the hallways and staying up way too late playing video games on weeknights and getting busted trying to sweet-talk their way into R-rated movies. They shouldn’t have had to fear any consequences more devastating than a weekend scrubbing the latrine and maybe a note on their “permanent record” that literally nobody would give a shit about once they graduated, and instead--_

_Two funerals. One pyre on a volcanic moon, one symbolic burial-at-sea of a treasured bit of Earth on an ocean planet._

_Lance had been right about one thing. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen._

_But here they were._

_And then they discovered, at the worst possible time, that they couldn’t form Voltron anymore._

_They tried. They really did. But they weren’t a team anymore, not like they had been, and they all knew it and by then it was too late for them to try and learn to_ be _one again._

_Earth was under siege and they were out of time._

 

* * *

 

“He’s fighting it again,” Sam said.

Iverson nodded. “We’re getting close to how he got here, then.”

“We’re getting close to him needing a break,” Shiro said.

“As soon as we know what we need to know, we’ll let him rest. Go on, Commander.”

 

* * *

 

_Lotor found Earth first, and he brought with him both a warning and a promise of protection from his father. He said all the right things. He did all the right things. He gave them intel, technology, supplies, weapons, scientists, whatever they needed, whatever they asked for. He kept every promise he made and gave them everything they asked for and more and he earned their trust--their absolute, unwavering trust. And all he asked in return? Just a little information. Just the whereabouts of the Lions and the Castle, of course he only wanted to talk to them, he had Earth’s best interests at heart after all and Voltron would be a most helpful addition to Earth’s defenses, and do keep an eye out and let him know if they turned up?_

_But of course the only interests he had at heart were his own, of course this was all a game to him, where the prize on the line was his father’s approval._

_And of course he’d rigged the system. Every fighter, every weapon, every drone, every last gift he’d given Earth, he could turn against them whenever he wanted. From the moment they’d accepted his offer of protection, Earth was doomed._

_And of course he had a trap ready for when the distress call went out and the Lions of Voltron and their castle ship inevitably came running to save Earth, and every intention of handing them over, practically gift-wrapped, to his father._

 

* * *

 

“We need to stop,” Sam said. _“Now.”_

Iverson ignored him. “What happened after that?”

Adam’s hologram said nothing. The real Adam made some kind of noise in the cryopod, some short little strangled cry.

“I--I can’t.” Adam’s hologram flickered, glitched out, and reappeared. “I can’t th-think about this--I c--”

“That’s enough,” Shiro said through his teeth. “Allura, turn it off. This can wait until he wakes up.”

“Disregard that, Princess. Commander Wolf? What happened when you got back to Earth?”

“I can’t--I c-can’t--Takashi, _tell him I can’t!_ ”

“Adam, you don’t have to answer that!” Shiro snapped. “Just--ten minutes, shut it off for _ten minutes_ \--”

“We need an answer. How did you end up in this reality? _How do we get you back to yours?”_

“Get me _back--”_ Another noise from the cryopod. “Is THAT what this is about? THAT’S why you’ve been digging around in my head!? _You’re trying to send me BACK!?”_ Adam’s hologram opened his mouth like he was trying to say more. Nothing came out for a while, and then...

**_“NO!”_ **

Everything after was a burst of garbled static punctuated by things that sounded like _I can’t_ and _never_ and _I promised_ and that was all Shiro could stand.

“That’s _enough!_ ” he snapped. _“_ You said you’d give him a break if I said he needed one, well, I’m telling you _he needs a break!_ ”

“I said _it depends,_ and we’re _this close_ to getting the answers we need from him. Princess, you said you could force--”

“I also said I am not going to do it to one of our own people and that is _not negotiable,”_ Allura countered, “and let me remind you that _I’m the only person on this planet who knows how to run this device.”_

 _“Sir.”_ That was Sam, thank God, if anyone in this room still had the good sense to listen it was going to be Sam. “Shiro’s right. We need to stop right now. He’s having a full-on panic attack in there.”

“I’m shutting it down,” Allura said, and thank God for that, too. Iverson looked like he wanted to say something about that, but Shiro knew he wasn’t stupid--he knew he was outnumbered here.

Instead, Iverson glared at _him._

“I thought having you in here would make this go a lot smoother,” he said. “Obviously I was mistaken. We’ll start up again in ten minutes, and when that happens, I want you _out of this room._ If you’re still here when I get back, you are _not_ going to like what’s going to happen.” And with that, he turned and stomped out into the hall.

“All right then,” Allura finally snapped once he was gone, arms crossed across her chest, “I just won’t start it back up! How about _that?”_

“I’m all for it,” Sam said. “Let’s just tell him the system broke down and needs to recharge, or something. How would he know we’re stalling? He doesn’t know how any of this stuff works.”

“Don’t do that. He’s mad at _me,”_ Shiro snorted. “I’m used to it. You don’t have to draw his fire.” He sat down, pressed his forehead against the cold glass front of the cryopod, and huffed out a sigh. Inside the cryopod, with the memory extraction system powered down, the panic was gone from Adam’s face and he slept quietly. But there was fresh blood under his fingernails. Shiro could barely see it at this angle but he knew if he looked at the palm of Adam’s hand, he would find matching bloody crescent moons dug into it. The cryopod would make short work of them, they would be gone long before he woke up, of course, but still…

“I just wish there was another way to do this without waiting for him to wake up,” Allura said.

“Yeah,” Shiro said. “If there was someone else we could ask, someone who was there--”

He stopped.

Someone else _was_ there.

Someone who might, just might, be willing to show him what happened.

“Shiro?” Allura laid a hand on his shoulder. “What is it?”

“I changed my mind,” he said, heading for the door. _“Stall.”_

“Wait--” Allura reached down behind some of the memory extraction machinery, grabbed something, and yanked it loose. “Here,” she said, handing Shiro a little capsule full of faintly glowing gel. “You’d better take this with you.”

“What is it?” Shiro asked.

“Once Admiral Iverson gets back, I’m going to tell him that cell’s gone flat and I’ve sent you to recharge it. The system won’t work without it so...” She grinned. Shiro could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen Allura grin like that, and every single time she had, some absolutely awe-inspiring power move had followed it. “I suppose we’ll just have to _wait for you to come back_ before we can continue. _”_

“You’re amazing,” Shiro said, and couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“So I’ve heard. Hurry and do whatever it is you need to do.”

 

* * *

 

Adam’s Black Lion still sat in its hangar facing its counterpart, dark and quiet, sleeping off its injuries. And maybe Shiro was _technically_ not supposed to mess with it, maybe the second Black Lion and everything connected to it was _technically_ outside of his command at the moment, maybe he had _technically_ pulled a bit of rank he shouldn’t have and gently leaned on a couple of junior officers until they let him inside the security cordon they had up around Adam’s Lion and maybe he was _technically_ supposed to get Iverson to sign off on this.

And normally Shiro would be at least begrudgingly okay with going through the motions of handling all those _technically_ s by the book but right now? _Fuck_ the chain of command. As far as Shiro was concerned, Garrison Command knew he had a long and well-documented history of raising hell for the sake of the greater good and they shouldn’t have given him the damn rank if they didn’t expect him to pull it where he _technically_ shouldn’t once in a while.

He stood there now, in that hangar, staring up at Adam’s Lion and the barrier that surrounded it.

“I need to talk to you,” Shiro said to it. “You know who I am, don’t you?”

Adam’s Lion stirred, raising its head weakly. The other Black Lion didn’t move, but Shiro could feel some kind of conversation taking place.

“I want to help you,” Shiro said. “I want to help your _Paladin,_ if you know who I am you know what--you know how much--”

He took a deep breath.

_“You know I love him.”_

More of that wordless conversation between the two Black Lions. And then Adam’s Lion lowered its barrier and opened its mouth.

It felt familiar in here, and yet not. Shiro got the impression that this Black Lion would be slower in flight than the one he and Keith knew but still surprisingly agile for its size, and far sturdier. Stronger shields, for sure. Maybe even an actual particle barrier. It would be interesting to try and fly it, but that wasn’t what he was here for.

He made his way to the cockpit and sat in the pilot seat. His hands found the control sticks. Adam’s Black didn’t wake up, exactly--no displays came to life, no machinery started up, it was still exhausted and likely grieving the loss of its own Lions, but it sent him an image: a simple black titanium ring, on a chain around Adam’s neck. The same ring Shiro had tucked away in his pocket.

Adam’s Lion didn’t know him, but it knew _of_ him and that was good enough.

“Can you show me what happened?” Shiro asked. “Before you came here. Before you went into that wormhole.”

Adam’s Black made a little noise in Shiro’s mind, a little burst of static that felt like a question mark.

“Because I need to know. Because there are some people who mean well, but they think you and your Paladin need to go back where you came from--.”

The reaction was immediate, and it hit Shiro like a sucker punch in the face; he even wiped a hand across his nose half-expecting it to come away bloody. This was something he’d never felt from his Lion. But he recognized it all the same. He’d felt it himself enough times, after all. He’d felt it when some specific sight or sound or smell dragged up memories he didn’t want. He’d felt it in the middle of the night, when he woke from nightmares his waking mind wouldn’t let him remember. He’d felt this enough times to know _exactly_ what it was.

Lions didn’t communicate with their Paladins in words. That wasn’t how it worked, that had _never_ been how it worked, but this was the closest Shiro had ever known one of them to come to it. Adam’s Black screamed something, a short, shrill, dissonant alarm in his mind, screamed it over and over and there was no mistaking the translation:

 _NO! NO! NO! NONONONO_ **_NO--_ **

“Okay. _Okay.”_ Shiro reached out with his mind, tried to reassure the Lion. “I’m with you on this, okay? I know you didn’t come here by accident. I know there’s a reason.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Eyes closed. Mind open. _“Show me.”_

There was another little burst of static that felt like a flashing warning sign. Then Adam’s Black Lion touched his mind, gently. It felt almost like… an apology in advance.

Like it knew this was going to hurt.

 

* * *

 

 _This is where Earth should have been. This is where Earth_ had _been._

 _There was nothing left. Nothing but a cloud of dust and rock and water boiling away to nothing in the vacuum of space. Nothing but swarms upon swarms of fighters pouring out of what looked like most of Zarkon’s own fleet of warships to pick off any survivors that had managed to get clear of the blast. A handful of the rebel ships managed to make a clean getaway, and Adam hoped desperately that Sam and Pidge had made it onto one of them but knew that even if they had, the nearest rebel base was way too far away for comfort and if_ any _Galra ships noticed them between here and there..._

 _They’d had a plan. It should have worked. It_ would _have worked._

_If they’d only gotten here sooner. If the rebels had been better organized. If they’d been better armed. If Haggar hadn’t smoked the Blades out. If fucking Sanda hadn’t sold them out. If they hadn’t taken Lotor’s bait. If they hadn’t needed Allura in the Castle to run the teludav. If Lotor hadn’t taken advantage of that to get his hands on the Blue Lion and hand it straight over to Zarkon._

_If Hunk hadn’t traded his life for a little extra time. If his sacrifice had bought Matt enough time to get onto Zarkon’s flagship_ and _get out after he dropped the payload. If the bomb had been nearly as effective as it should have been when it went off._

_If Haggar’s damn druids hadn’t managed to cut Thace off from Red._

_If Thace had taken more of them with him._

_If everything had gone differently, it would have all worked out._

_But now here they were, the Black Lion and the Castle. Alone. With far too many fighters and warships between them and Zarkon’s flagship. With nobody to draw fire, nobody to buy them time and breathing room so they could concentrate their assault on Zarkon’s flagship and finish the job Matt’s bomb should have, nobody to take back the other four Lions, nobody to fly them even if they could manage that--_

_Allura shouted something but Adam couldn’t quite make it out, it was garbled and kept cutting out and something was wrong with Black, something was_ horribly _wrong with Black, its controls weren’t responding, its displays kept glitching out, flashing garbage, flashing solid red, flashing the Galra insignia--_

 _(Shiro knows exactly what it means, it happened to his Lion for the same reason, and even though he knows he’s watching a memory and he can’t change what happened any more than he can change the script of a movie by yelling at the screen he still finds himself growling “fight him, baby--come on,_ fight him--”)

 _\--but Zarkon’s connection with his old Lion wasn’t what it used to be, and Adam knew it. He took his hands off the control sticks and somehow found it in him to shut his mind up for the precious few seconds it took to reach out to Black. “I know I can’t make you listen to me,” he told it, “I’m going to let you do what you feel is right, I trust you, but you know what’s going to happen if you choose him. I’ll help you fight him if you want me to. I’ll do whatever it takes to save you, please,_ let me help you!”

_And that was it. Black trusted Adam, it always had, it loved him, but that small gesture of taking his hands off the sticks, of trusting Black to know what was right… that cemented it. Adam swore he could hear giant invisible doors in giant invisible walls slam shut, swore he could hear Zarkon howling in rage at being denied, and Black’s displays all went back to normal, communications back to normal, controls--_

So be it.

_Zarkon’s voice. Directly in Adam’s mind._

I don’t need to control the Lion.

 _(“No,” Shiro whimpers because he knows what’s coming, the memory isn’t_ his _exactly but he knows what’s coming and his arm--his right arm--aches in sympathy because even if he doesn’t remember, his body does. “No, please, no--”)_

I only need to control the _pilot._

_Pain exploded white-hot in Adam’s arm, spread into his shoulder and his spine and his head like wildfire--_

_(The scream tears at Shiro’s heart and knowing this is a memory and there’s nothing he can do to change it just makes it worse--)_

_From the moment Adam had come to and found this thing where his own arm had once been, it had hurt. It never quite stopped. It barely felt anything else--it registered pressure, temperature and friction to a degree, but mostly it just_ hurt. _A dull ache that ran from his shoulder to his fingertips had become the background noise of his existence, and raising his shield felt like sharp rusty bits of metal scraping along his nerves._

 _But this was worse,_ so _much worse than anything he’d ever felt, and when Adam finally managed to half-open his eyes he almost expected to see nothing but a ragged stump where his arm had been. But it was still there, still apparently undamaged._

Surrender to me, _Zarkon said in his mind._

_“No,” Adam snarled back._

_His left hand rose, opened, clamped down tight on the left control stick against his will, tried to force a control override, and Black screamed in Adam’s mind in pain and confusion because it didn’t understand, it wanted to obey him but how could it know which commands were from him and which were from Zarkon? Adam was even starting to have trouble telling his own thoughts from Zarkon’s. He knew he had to do something and he knew he had to do it_ now.

Surrender and the pain will end, _Zarkon said, and Adam shook his head._

_“I said,” Adam snarled, calling his bayard to his hand, calling the sword while he still had enough control over himself to do this, “I’d do--whatever--it takes--”_

_He raised the sword and--_

_(Shiro squeezes his eyes shut as if that’s going to keep him from seeing this, he’s proud of Adam, so proud of him for seeing what has to be done and doing it, he’s not sure_ he _could have done it and he’s so fucking proud it hurts but god_ dammit _he doesn’t want to have to watch it)_

 _He couldn’t take_ all _of the Galra arm off. Not at that angle. But he could take enough of it, enough to break Zarkon’s control over it, over_ him _. Most of the arm clattered to the floor, harmless now. The nerves from his shoulder all the way up and down his spine were screaming, the memory of his arm still ached, his vision was going gray around the edges and there was cold sweat running down the back of his neck and acid in the back of his throat but he was_ free _and so was Black and that was all that mattered._

_But for how long?_

_With all other options closed to him, the next thing Zarkon would try would be to overwhelm him, immobilize Black, physically drag it onto his flagship by force. How long could Adam hold out? How long could Black hold out? How long could the Castle hold out? Not long enough._

_They needed to wormhole now,_ right now _\--and God, Adam hoped he was saying this out loud, he couldn’t really tell anymore--they needed to get out of here, Adam didn’t know where they could jump that would be safe, where they could run and Zarkon couldn’t follow but right now anywhere, literally fucking_ anywhere _would be better than here._

_Allura was quiet for a moment._

_“Where he can’t follow,” she repeated. “Adam… listen to me.” There was something strange in her voice, something heavy that Adam had never heard in it, and it terrified him. “I’m… I’m going to open a wormhole. This may not work. But I have to try.” A long silence. “Promise me. No matter what happens, promise me you’ll never try to come back here.”_

_Something about that made Black bristle and made the hairs on the back of Adam’s neck stand up. “Princess, I don’t--I don’t understand, what are you doing--”_

_“If you come back, you’ll be alone. You against the entire Galra Empire. If you come back, Zarkon_ will _take the Black Lion from you one way or another. He’ll have_ Voltron. _More people than we can ever imagine will be in danger. And all of our deaths will be for nothing. Adam, please, promise me you won’t come back!”_

_Fighters and warships, closing in. If they were going to do this--whatever they were doing--it had to be now._

_“I promise,” Adam said. “Wait, what do you mean ‘our--’”_

_The wormhole opened just ahead of him. It looked different, somehow. Thicker. Deeper. What the hell was she doing?_

_“Thank you.” She sounded weak. Tired. “Please… please hurry, I can’t hold it open for long...”_

_More than anything, Adam wanted answers. He wanted to know where this wormhole went, why it looked so different, why she made him promise her that, what the hell she meant by_ “our deaths-”

_But Black thought it understood, and without waiting for Adam’s command it took off, making tor the wormhole as fast as it could with a wordless promise to explain later if he wanted. If they survived._

Then help me out here, Black, _Adam thought._ I can’t steer with one hand.

_Black assured him it could handle keeping itself off the walls of the wormhole for him, and at least that was one less thing he had to worry about._

_They could see the end of the wormhole now, and just outside it was a planet. Blue and green and brown, covered with swirling white clouds. A planet that shouldn’t have been there. A planet they’d just watched die. And yet here it was, whole and beautiful._

_And then the shockwave hit._

_The force of a black hole collapsing inside the wormhole._

_Black wasn’t ready for it and neither was Adam, he tried to hang on, tried to brace against it but it was far too little, far too late. He wasn’t sure whether he actually heard his ribs snap or just felt it in his ears but it didn’t matter._

_The Lions didn’t communicate with their Paladins in words, that wasn’t how it worked, but this was the closest Adam had ever heard Black come to it. It touched his mind as gently as it could while it fought to stop itself from bouncing off the walls of the wormhole, making a soothing little noise that sounded like it was saying_ sorry _to him, over and over,_ sorry sorry sorry.

_And then they were out. Out of the wormhole. Out of control. Almost out of energy._

_But something--something strong, something gentle, something that brought with it a friendly, familiar voice--something caught Black by the tail and slowed it down. Something else, with another impossible friendly familiar voice, landed on its back and helped steady its flight._

_And one more, ahead of it, said something about_ home.

 

* * *

 

Shiro sat in the pilot seat of Adam’s Black Lion with his heart racing, his shoulders and knees shaking, and his head in his hands trying to steady himself as the vision faded away. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.

 _You have to tell them,_ he told himself. But he wasn’t sure he could stand up, much less make it back to the pod ward, much less--

_Breathe, dammit. Focus. Get up. You’ll have time to freak out about this later. Right now you have to tell them._

Adam’s Black Lion touched his mind, then. It felt… grateful.

Its Paladin couldn’t speak for it right now, but Shiro could.

He stood up. His legs held.

“No,” he whispered, brushing his fingertips over the back of the pilot seat. “Thank _you.”_

Adam’s Black made that little soothing noise, the one that sounded like _sorry._

“It’s okay. I just hope they’ll listen.”

He made his way back out into the hangar, took his phone out of his pocket, and sent a message to the Paladins’ group chat: _need everyone back in the pod ward ASAP._

 _He can’t go back,_ Shiro thought, _he has to stay here, he can’t go back, he can’t_ ever _go back,_ and if he said there wasn’t more than a little bit of a sense of selfish vindication in that, that his _personal attachment_ to Adam wasn’t talking at all there, he would have been lying but it was more than that, so much more than that.

For the safety of this whole damn _reality_ and who knew how many more, Adam had to stay here.

 

* * *

 

The Paladins had beaten him back, and Shiro wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing until he came through the door and found Iverson there, his face an alarming shade of purple, looking like he was dying to rip Shiro two or three new ones right there on the spot.

“The damndest thing happened after I kicked you out of here,” he said, in that slow measured tone of voice he used when he really wanted to tear into someone but there were too many cadets around for him to get away with dropping a tactical F-bomb or ten. “I came back in ten minutes, like I said, and _this damn thing wouldn’t start up._ Apparently some kind of-- _something_ went out on it, and you just _happened_ to be available to run it off to get it charged. So we had to wait on _you_ to continue. And then,” he went on, “I’ve just been informed that _someone_ told the security detail on Commander Wolf’s Lion that it _technically_ fell under your command now. And that same _someone_ then proceeded to _enter that Lion_ despite being told in no uncertain terms that he was absolutely not to do that without authorization from me _._ Would you care to explain just what the entire damn hell _someone_ thought he was doing, _Captain?_ ”

“That’s what you said when the Paladins brought it in, sir.” Normally, Shiro would have had a hard time keeping a straight face but today, he was just entirely too _done_ to find any of this amusing. “‘Once we’ve established that this thing is what it looks like, it’s all yours.’ Your exact words. And I think we’ve pretty solidly established at this point that it _is_ what it looks like.”

Iverson couldn’t come up with a single English word to say to any of that, and after a couple of false starts he just gave up trying. Shiro knew he was probably going to catch hell for this later, and right now he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“You said this wasn’t going to be an interrogation,” Shiro said, “but you’ve sure as hell been treating it like one. I told Princess Allura when you sent her to tell me you were planning on doing this, and I’m telling you now: _this is not how we operate,_ and I’ve had _enough of it._ So… I have _one question_ for Commander Wolf. Once he answers it, we’re finished. And you…” He pointed at Iverson. “You’re going to sit down, and you’re going to _listen._ ” He reached into his pocket and took out the part Allura had given him. “You’ll need this, I guess.”

Allura stepped forward and took the part from him. “Should I start it up now?”

“Not yet, _”_ Shiro said. _“_ He can’t hear us right now, right?

“No, of course not,” Allura replied. “Not with the system shut down.”

“Shiro?” That was Keith. “What were you doing with his Lion?”

“I’ll explain in a minute,” Shiro said. “But for now... I know how he got here, and I know _why_ he’s here. _”_

Lance raised his hand. “Quick question, are we done hearing about us and/or our friends dying in horrible ways or is that going to come up again?”

“It… might come up again,” Shiro said. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to hear it the first time, I should have listened to Adam and kicked you all out the first time he said to. But… yeah, it might.”

“No, that’s fine… well, it’s not _fine,_ but--yeah, it kinda helps to have some warning.”

“I’ll try to steer away from anything too specific on that subject, but…” Shiro turned to Allura. “Let me ask you something, Princess. You’re facing down the entire Galra Empire at its absolute strongest. Zarkon has four Lions in hand. Their Paladins are dead, and we both know throwing people at Zarkon’s flagship until you find four of them the Lions like isn’t an option _._ It’s you, Coran, the Castle of Lions, one Lion, and one Paladin left and you know it’s only a matter of time before Zarkon gets hold of all of you.”

“Yeah, that sure is a doomsday scenario there,” Pidge said softly, and Lance snorted.

“Oh, it gets worse. No Garrison. No _Earth._ No Voltron Coalition. No Blade of Marmora. There are little pockets of rebels here and there, but they’d be outnumbered and outgunned a thousand to one. If you fight, you’re dead. If you run, they’ll find you. There is no possible battle strategy that’s going to end in victory for you here. So what do you do? If you know you can’t win, what’s your priority?”

“Protect that Lion,” Allura said. “Keep it out of Zarkon’s hands. Just like my father did.”

“Right. But how are you going to do that? Where could you possibly send it that Zarkon couldn’t follow? Could you open up a cross-reality wormhole with the Castle’s teludav?”

“No,” she said, a little too quickly. “I… I don’t know. If I could it would be…” Allura shook her head. “It would take so much… it might kill me, but... and it would be almost impossible to pick and choose, to find a safe reality, so it would just be the nearest one I could punch a hole into and of course there’s no guarantee _that_ reality would be any safer... but if the situation were that desperate and there was no other choice...” She sighed. “It’s not impossible.”

“All right. Now correct me if I’m wrong, my consciousness was sort of _still contained in the Black Lion_ when this happened so the details are a little fuzzy, but… didn’t you blow up the Castle to seal off some kind of hole in reality or something after you fought Lotor in the quintessence field?”

“Yeah,” Keith said. “Something like that.”

“Would self-destructing the Castle inside a wormhole do kind of the same thing?”

“I suppose it might--Shiro, _where are you going with this?_ ”

“So if you found yourself in a desperate situation where the enemy had four Lions and you needed to hide the fifth fast and do it in such a way that it would _never_ be found… does sending it through a cross-reality wormhole and then sealing the path between those two realities up by blowing up the Castle in it sound like a plan you’d come up with?”

“I--if there was no other--Shiro, what’s going on, why are you--”

“Yes or no?”

 _“Yes!”_ Allura threw up her hands. _“Yes,_ IF the enemy had the other four Lions, IF we had no hope of recovering them, IF their Paladins were all dead, IF we had no support from the Blades or the Garrison or the rebels or anyone else, IF the situation was truly that desperate and there was absolutely no other way to keep the Black Lion out of enemy hands, then _yes, I’d try exactly that but none of that has happened!_ None of it will EVER happen! Why are we talking about a hypothetical situation that’s _never going to happen_? What does ANY of this have to do with _him?_ ”

“It has _everything_ to do with him,” Shiro replied. “This isn’t a hypothetical situation-- _it already happened!_ It happened in _his_ reality. That’s how he got here. That’s why he _can’t go back!”_

“How do you know all this?” Allura asked him. “What did you--” She stopped then, realization dawning in her eyes. “There _was_ someone else you could ask!”

“His Lion,” Keith said. “It showed you what happened, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. You can go ask it yourself if you want. It knows you, it’ll show you too.”

“I’m good,” Keith said. “If his Lion told you that’s what happened, that’s what happened.”

In the back of the room, Sam and Iverson exchanged a look. “All right,” Iverson said, “that’s a hell of a story, now how are you going to back it up? Or are you just expecting those of us who don’t speak Lion to take your word for it?”

Shiro nodded to Allura. “Go ahead and start it up.”

Allura did what she needed to do, and Adam’s hologram reappeared.

“Adam?” Something about talking to a hologram while the real Adam lay in a cryopod right there next to it unnerved Shiro all the way to his core, and he hated the fact that they were still having to have this conversation like this. “Can you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Adam replied. God, he sounded so tired, and Shiro just wanted to throw the memory extraction setup out the damn window and let him rest, but...

“I know this has been hard for you and we’re going to make this quick. I have to ask you one more question and then I promise we’re going to turn this thing off for good.” Shiro glanced over his shoulder and shot Iverson a look that said, in no uncertain terms, _do not test me_.

“Okay,” Adam sighed. “One question. Okay.”

“Do you remember the last thing Allura said to you before you came through the wormhole?”

“Oh dammit, Takashi--I can’t do this, please don’t--”

“I know, okay? _I know what she said._ Your Lion showed me what happened to you, but--”

“Then _you_ tell them! If my Lion showed you, you know what she said!” Adam shouted, panic rising in his voice again. _“You can tell them!”_

“Adam, listen to me. _I know this hurts_ . It hurt me just to watch it, I can’t even imagine how much it must hurt _you_ to remember living through it and I’m sorry. _I’m so sorry about all of this_ . But they need to hear it from _you._ Just this one thing and we’re done. We’re _done._ I _promise.”_

A long silence. Shiro leaned in close to the cryopod and shut his eyes.

“You can do this, baby. I know you can. I saw what you did to save your Lion. If you could do that, then _you can do this._ ”

Inside the cryopod, the real Adam twitched and made a little whimpering noise.

“She said...she made me promise I’d never try to come back. She told me that if I did…” Pause. “If I did, I’d be alone. Zarkon would get hold of Black. He’d have Voltron. She said… she said all their deaths will be for nothing.” He went silent for a while. “I didn’t understand any of it until I saw Earth, and that shock wave… Black knew, though, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Shiro whispered. “It knew.”

The silence in the room was almost tangible.

“Is that all you need?” Adam’s hologram finally said.

“That’s all,” Shiro replied, laying his hand on the cool surface of the cryopod. “I know this wasn’t easy for you and I’m sorry we--I’m sorry you had to--” He shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Adam. You can rest now.” He turned around. _“Turn it off._ I don’t want him to hear what I’m about to say.”

Allura did whatever it was she needed to do to shut the memory extraction system down, and Adam’s hologram vanished.

“If we send him back,” Shiro began, “we’ll be sending him back to a _doomed reality._ It’s going to be him. Alone. Against an entire Galra Empire that’s more powerful than anything we’ve _ever_ seen on this side. How long do you think he’s going to last? And do you really think Zarkon’s going to stop with _him?_ With _that reality?_ What do you think is going to happen when he finds out where Adam’s Lion went, and where it came back from, and when he finds out we shot the locks off the door for him? You wouldn’t just be sending Adam on _another_ pointless suicide mission, you’d be _endangering this entire reality_ to do it!”

Nobody said anything to that. Nobody moved. Shiro wasn’t even sure if anyone other than him was breathing at that point.

“Shiro’s right,” Sam finally said. “If we break that seal… I mean, if we even _can_ break that seal...”

“We’d just be… handing him to Zarkon,” Hunk said. “And then Zarkon’s going to come _here._ Guys. _No.”_

“You’ve beaten Zarkon before,” Iverson said. “I’m sure you could manage to--”

Lance shook his head. “Zarkon with his whole fleet--” He started counting them off on his fingers. ”-- _another_ Haggar, a Lotor that’d do literally freaking _anything_ to make his daddy love him and hey, did we forget _a real live actual whole-ass Voltron of his own?_ Not _that_ Zarkon we haven’t and if it’s all the same to you guys _? Hard pass._ ”

“Not to mention all the stuff we’re _already dealing with.”_ Keith took over counting on _his_ fingers. “The Haggar we’ve _already got_ . Sendak’s faction. And Lotor’s. And Zarkon’s. Just because _they’re_ dead doesn’t mean we don’t still have to put up with their fans. Oh, and the space pirates. Who just _happen_ to keep showing up with more and more advanced weapons every time we see them.”

“Yeah,” Lance said. “And are we even going to talk about the part where we only like… _theoretically_ know one way to open up that kind of wormhole and that one way could _literally kill Allura?”_

“We sure are going to talk about that!” Pidge chimed in. “Short version? _No!”_

“Slightly less short version?” Lance leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. “ _Hell fuckin’ no!”_

Shiro bit his tongue and waited for one of the other adults in the room to say something about that, practically silently _dared_ them to, because _he_ sure as hell wasn’t. Sam didn’t. Iverson opened his mouth like he was thinking about it. But he caught Shiro’s gaze, decided Lance’s deployment of a tactical F-bomb was also not the hill he wanted to die on right now, and closed his mouth.

“I wasn’t going to say it in front of my dad but… yeah, _that._ And even if we _could_ figure out how to unseal that reality without, y’know… literally killing anyone,” Pidge continued, “we’d be sending him back straight into occupied space. I mean, we’d pretty much have to send him back to the same physical location, right? Unless we want to risk wormholing him straight into the core of a planet or a black hole or something because it’s in a different place in that reality. And he’s in a Black Lion, and yeah, I know the Lions are pretty sturdy but they’re not meant to just go cruising all over the universe on their own. He doesn’t have a Castle. He doesn’t have any kind of support ship or carrier or _anything_ . He can’t wormhole. He doesn’t have a cloaking device. He wouldn’t make it out of the _solar system!_ We’d be sending him back to--” She shook her head. _“We can’t do that!”_

Shiro glanced over at Allura. “Princess? You were pretty convinced that he needed to go back, what do you think now?”

“He has to stay here,” she said, without a bit of hesitation. “It...it breaks my heart to think of what’s going to happen to his reality. But the risk is far too great if we try to send him back. For _everyone_ involved. In his reality _and_ ours, and who knows how many others.”

“That’s the thing about alternate universes,” Sam said. “For every reality where Zarkon lost, there’s going to be one where he won. We can’t fix them all.”

“I’m not talking about fixing them all.” Iverson held up a hand. “But shouldn’t we help him fix _his--”_

“You _still_ want to try that? _After everything you just heard?”_   Shiro spat at him. He took two steps towards Iverson, and somewhere in the back of his mind he noticed Lance scooting _way_ the hell out of his way and made a mental note to apologize for scaring him later. “You haven’t learned a damn thing, have you?”

“Captain,” Iverson began, “I would appreciate it if you took a step backwards, _right now.”_

Shiro did not do that.

“You said you should have listened to Sam when he said sending Adam’s squadron out was a bad call,” he continued. _“Well, here we are again._ I’m telling you he can’t go back. Sam is telling you he can’t go back. Allura is telling you he can’t go back. You brought the Paladins in here because you thought they’d be in your corner on this and now _they’re_ telling you he can’t go back--hell, _Adam told you himself_ he can’t go back! What else do you need to hear?” He leaned down, _right_ into Iverson’s personal space. “You can’t go back and change what you did. _But you can damn sure not make the same mistake again.”_

Nobody said a word, for far too long. Nobody moved.

In the end, Iverson was the one to break the silence. And the one to take a step backwards.

“Get him set up with whatever he needs when he wakes up,” he finally said. “I’m releasing him and his Lion to your command. _Officially._ Is that thing ever going to fly again?”

“No idea,” Shiro replied, still staring him down.

Iverson gave a curt little nod. “If it doesn’t, we’re going to need him back in a fighter soon as he’s able.”

Shiro returned that little nod. “Yes sir.”

Iverson nodded again and took his leave. Sam went with him.

It took a while for Shiro to really understand what that meant. But once he did, he felt his legs threaten to buckle under him and knew he was going to need to sit down soon. It must have showed on his face; he felt someone pat him on the shoulder and heard someone say something soft and reassuring to him. Keith, probably. Maybe Lance. Maybe it was a joint effort.

Adam was staying here. He was really staying here.

Shiro didn’t know what was going to happen when Adam woke up, what he was going to do for the rest of his life on this side, what was going to happen with their relationship _,_ and maybe he’d find it in himself to worry about all of that later but right now all that mattered was that _this_ part of it was over. Adam was safe, they were _all_ relatively safe (as much so as they could be considering the shit they already had to deal with, anyway), nobody was going to be kicking down a door that led into a reality where Zarkon won, and as long as Shiro had anything to say about it, nobody was going to do anything stupid to jeopardize _any_ of that.

“He’s probably going to wake up soon, huh?” Pidge asked, and Shiro nodded. “So... we really need to get back to work on his arm, then.”

“Yes,” Allura said. “Absolutely. I was hoping to have it ready by the time he woke up, but… well… _this_ happened.”

“Yeah. Hey, Shiro? What’s his favorite color?”

“Orange. Wait. _Why?”_

“No reason. I’m gonna show it to paint-n-body and see what they think. Also no reason.” Pidge grinned in a way that said _there are totally reasons for both of these things._ “Hey, maybe we can do a test run on that thing we talked about later.”

“Which thing?” Allura asked her. “The personal particle barrier or the grapple?”

“Yes.”

 _“No!”_   Shiro spluttered. He imagined what Adam’s response to all this might be and couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, he’d probably like the-- _no!_  Look, just promise me you’ll stick to the basics until he wakes up, huh? Then you can ask _him_ how much mad science he wants in it.”

Pidge edged towards the door. “Okay, okay. So… _do_ the mad science, but don’t install it yet. Got it.” And before Shiro could say anything else, she scooted off.

“I’d better go keep an eye on her,” Allura said. “Shiro… I’m so sorry about all of this.”

Shiro shook his head. “It’s not your fault. Iverson was the one that wanted to do it.”

“Well… when he wakes up, I still want to apologize to him personally for putting him through this.” She left in a hurry, without waiting for a response. But she touched Lance’s arm on the way out, and Lance gave her a little nod and touched her hand.

“He’s… he’s gonna be okay, right?” That was Hunk. Of course it was. Shiro nodded.

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Good. I liked him. He was one of the _cool_ teachers--” Hunk shut up quickly. “I mean! Not that _you_ weren’t one of the cool teachers too, Shiro! I just--”

“Okay, yep, time to go.” Lance grabbed Hunk by the back of the belt and ever so gently marched him towards the door. “Come on, let’s go watch Pidge and Allura do a mad science. Hell, let’s _help_ them do a mad science.”

Hunk’s eyes sort of glazed over at that. _“Ooh._ Right. Did Allura say _personal particle barrier?_ I _gotta_ see that.”

 _“I said no mad science!”_ Shiro called down the hall after them, but they were already gone.

It was just him and Keith then.

“Hey,” Keith finally said, reaching out to lay his hand on the cold glass of the cryopod. ”If you need to get out of here for a while I can stay with him.”

“I’m good. I just… really need to sit down.” Shiro shook his head. He could feel the tension draining out of him, and that should have been a good thing but now it felt like that was all that had been holding him upright all this time. He pulled the two chairs in the room closer to the cryopod, and he and Keith each took one. “After all of that… I’m still kind of scared to let him out of my sight right now, y’know?”

“Yeah.” Keith nodded. “But he’s not going anywhere.”

They sat there in silence for a while.

“Do you think you’ll… y’know, get back together?” Keith finally asked. “I hope you do.”

“I don’t know. Even if he never wants anything to do with me again it doesn’t matter. He’s alive. He’s safe. That’s all I care about.” Shiro thought of the ring in his pocket and sighed. “I hope we do too.” He patted Keith on the shoulder. “Go catch up with the team. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Go make them do something fun. And do it with them. _And call me if you see anyone doing mad science on his arm.”_

“Got it.” Keith laughed and took off.

Shiro let out a long, shaky breath and rested his forehead on the cold glass of the cryopod for a while. God, he was exhausted and he sure wasn’t going to be able to sleep in this position, if at all. But after everything he’d heard over the last few days, everything he’d _seen,_ everything he knew about the hell Adam went through to get here and the thought of just how close they may have come to sending him back to it, never mind unleashing it on _this_ reality, the last thing Shiro wanted was to be alone in his quarters with all of those thoughts whirling around inside his head.

He sat there for a while trying to distract himself by thinking about all the mundane things Adam was going to need when he woke up. Uniforms. ID. A place to live. Some clothes and toiletries and such. Probably a new pair of glasses, not that his vision had ever been so bad he couldn’t function without them if he had to, but he _didn’t_ have to now, that was the important thing.

He was going to need something to do in case his Lion refused to fly without the rest of its team. Sure, he was an instructor, there were classes he could teach. But he was a pilot first and he wasn’t going to be happy staying on the ground in the middle of a war if his Lion decided it was done. Not that Shiro was terribly worried about that. That Lion loved him. It’d come around. Maybe it would take a while, though. And maybe Adam would be a good fit for an MFE fighter if it came to that.

He was going to need time. Time to decompress and process everything he’d been through and adjust to life in a new reality.

They were _both_ going to need time and they were going to need to have some potentially awkward and difficult conversations.

Shiro’s phone buzzed at his hip again, and he pulled it out and glanced at the screen.

Speaking of awkward and difficult conversations...

He knew he was going to have to stop dodging that call and make that appointment sooner or later. But even the thought of it pushed him over the limit of what he could deal with today.

 _Well, I said I’d have time to freak out later,_ Shiro thought. _It’s later._

He slumped forward in his chair, head in his hands, tears stinging in his eyes, and hoped like hell he could get this out of his system before Adam woke up or anyone else came in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awright so before any of y'all ask: were Adam and Thace doin’ it or nah? I’m gonna go with nah.
> 
> Did Adam think about it? Nnnnnnnot really? He kind of almost did? One (1) time it did in fact occur to him for a hot tick that Thace was a pretty good-looking dude? But with everything going on he wasn’t in a good headspace for even a casual hookup, much less an actual relationship, much less either of them with his “right hand” and he felt horrible for even kind of almost thinking about it. He was, however, hella pale for Thace--not saying quadrants are a thing here but if they were I’m just saying he would have been making diamond eyes in Thace’s general direction pretty much 24/7. 
> 
> Did Thace think about it? Absofuckinglutely. His feelings for Adam did pretty quickly start running red as they got to know each other, and he did at some point test the waters to see if Adam might be receptive. But he wasn’t and Thace understood why and understood that the mission comes first and respected Adam way too much as a leader and a friend to press the issue any further so that was the end of that. And that was absolutely why he did what he did when Lance died and Adam had that big breakdown. He really wanted to throw his arms around Adam and just sort of protectively curl up around him, but he also didn’t want to do that because he had himself convinced that he was just being selfish and he’d be taking unfair advantage of Adam being extra vulnerable and uggggh I’m sorry Thace, somewhere out there is an alternate reality where it worked out and you and Adam became ass-kicking space husbands. Maybe it’s one where Sven and Slav are bros, idk.
> 
> All that said: I ain’t saying there wasn’t some sexual tension there, I’m just saying they had to find another outlet for it and that outlet was generally the training deck and their sparring matches were the stuff of legends.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had a lot to process. He knew that, dammit, but it would still be there to process in the morning and right now he needed to sleep. The bed was comfortable--nothing special, Garrison single officer standard issue, but it had nice clean sheets and a nice clean blanket on it and it smelled like Takashi and oh, fuck it, Adam thought, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, because he knew exactly why he couldn’t sleep.
> 
> How the hell was he supposed to sleep in one room when his dead husband was alive and well in the next?

The first thing Adam noticed: it was way too bright.

The second: it was way too cold, and whatever he was wearing wasn’t nearly enough for it. 

He tried to open his eyes, but that wasn’t happening on account of that ridiculously bright light. Instead, he tried feeling around him. He was semi-upright, lying back against something soft but firm. There was a wall, and then in front of him there was cold curved glass, or at least something that felt like glass.

A cryopod? Must be a cryopod.

How the hell did he end up in a cryopod? All the cryopods he knew of were on the Castle, and the Castle was…

No, best not to ride that train of thought too far right now.

And speaking of trains of thought he didn’t really want to ride too far… why did he have this weird feeling like someone had been digging around in his head the whole time he’d been in here? 

And--crap. Where was his Lion?  _ Black?  _ Adam thought.  _ Where are you? You okay? _

The response came quickly--a wave of intense relief followed by what felt like a sort of “meh” handwave, from somewhere much closer by than he expected. Maybe even walking distance if he wasn’t in a hurry. Well, that was good. Black felt tired, though. No…  _ exhausted. _ That made two of them. God, he’d done nothing  _ but  _ sleep for who knows how long and now all he wanted to do was crawl into a proper bed and not move for the next month.

But all of this still begged the question:  _ where the hell was he? _

The cryopod was starting to warm up a little, obviously it could sense that he was at least partially awake, but it wouldn’t open until he was  _ completely  _ awake. So Adam concentrated as hard as he could on waking up. Which, thanks to the light and the temperature, wasn’t too hard. He tried opening his eyes again and actually managed to keep them halfway open for a couple of seconds before the light became downright painful. He thought he saw someone sitting, possibly sleeping, in a chair nearby, but…

He tried to open his eyes again. And again. And one more time, and that was what finally did it. He kept them open (well, sort of) for just long enough that the cryopod finally decided its occupant was awake enough, and  _ finally  _ the damn thing opened up to let him out.

It took Adam a minute to remember how his legs worked. But the sound of the cryopod opening woke up whoever was in that chair and when he realized who it was he forgot how to use his legs all over again, took a clumsy half a step, and would have fallen flat on his face if--

“Whoa, easy, I got you--”

Adam looked up again, just to make sure he was really seeing what he was seeing.  _ Who  _ he was seeing.

He looked different. 

His hair had gone completely white. 

There was a weirdly familiar-looking scar across the bridge of his nose. 

He was wearing something that was clearly a Garrison uniform, though not one like Adam had ever seen--a black and white jacket and a belt with the Voltron  _ V  _ insignia on the buckle. 

He looked tired, but not in the way Adam remembered--there was color in his face, his eyes were a little red but clear and bright, and those shadows under them were the kind eight solid hours of sleep in an actual bed would banish.

But there was no mistaking it. 

“Takashi--” Adam reached up with a trembling hand and stopped just short, like he was afraid this was some kind of illusion that his touch would shatter, but the warmth of the air in that narrow gap between his hand and Takashi’s cheek was too much to resist for long. 

It wasn’t an illusion. Takashi sucked in a quick, quiet breath and shut his eyes, leaning into the hand cupping his cheek. Adam opened his mouth to say something else, anything, but what the hell do you even say to your dead husband who is alive and well and who just kept you from falling on your face and oh,  _ screw it. _ He threw his arm around Takashi’s shoulders, and Takashi wrapped both arms around him and held him tight. “I thought I was dreaming--you’re okay, you’re  _ alive,  _ God, I missed you  _ so much,  _ please tell me this is real,  _ lie if you have to, I don’t care-- _ ”

“It’s real.  _ It’s real. _ You’re home. You’re safe.” Takashi laughed softly against the side of his head. “I missed you too,” he said, and something about that pinged Adam as not quite right but right now he didn’t care about that, all that mattered was that they were both alive and safe and at least for just this moment everything was okay. 

Except--

“...’home?’ We’re on Earth?” Adam asked, and Takashi just nodded and held him tighter.

“Garrison Medical. Brand spanking new cryopod ward.”

Adam buried his face in Takashi’s shoulder and let out a long, shaky breath and  _ dammit  _ he was not going to start crying, he was  _ not,  _ because he was absolutely certain that if he did he would never stop and Takashi didn’t need to see that. But it wasn’t a dream. Earth was okay. Takashi was okay. And God, Adam didn’t ever want to let him go. But that scar… 

He pulled back just a little, just enough to reach up again and brush his thumb over that scar. “How did you get that?”

Takashi didn’t answer that right away, not verbally. But he reached up and touched a fingertip to a point just above Adam’s left eyebrow, then traced it down over the bridge of his nose and down his right cheek. “Probably the same way you did,” he finally said. 

But Takashi did that with his left hand, which Adam thought was a little weird--Takashi was right-handed. 

That was when Adam noticed his shoulder. That was all it was, just--a glowing shoulder, but if that was all it was, then  _ how the hell was he still feeling Takashi’s hand in the small of his back-- _

He turned around and looked down as best he could and there it was. A forearm and a hand that were not physically connected to their owner in any way Adam could see. 

“Takashi, what the  _ hell!” _

Takashi shrugged and held that right hand up where Adam could see it. “I got an upgrade,” he said with a little grin. “Got the old one about the same way you did, too.” He brushed his fingertips over Adam’s left shoulder. “Speaking of which, Keith got your arm out of your Lion, Pidge and Allura are fixing it up for you.”

Hearing those names in the present tense brought a strong pair of unexpectedly conflicting feelings up to the surface. On the one hand… they were alive. They were okay. Probably Lance and Hunk and Matt and everyone else too. Almost certainly them too, because on the other...had he just dreamt this, or had they been asking him a lot of really uncomfortable questions while he was out?

“Hey,” Takashi said gently, apparently having noticed that Adam had sort of checked out of the conversation. “You okay? Need to sit down?”

“No, I just… I’m so damn tired. I feel like…” Screw it. “Like I just spent a solid day getting interrogated.”

Takashi winced at that. “Yeah. You, uh… you’re not wrong, and I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I wasn’t okay with that.”

“So… that actually happened.” Adam sighed. “I know you weren’t. I heard you. And I kind of understand why Iverson wanted to go ahead with it anyway but still… ” He frowned a little. “I guess you checking with my Lion convinced them, huh?”

“No. It helped, but _ you  _ convinced them. Either way, you’re staying on this side.”

Adam sighed and dropped his forehead back onto Takashi’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see all of that. It’s still… it’s still pretty fresh and I just.... I couldn’t...”

“Don’t worry about that.” Takashi rubbed his back.

“I don’t even know where they would have started trying to break that seal but…” Adam shivered a little. “I don’t want to think about it right now.”

“How much do you remember?” Takashi asked.

“Uh… pretty much all of it, I think.”

_ “Shit.”  _ Takashi shook his head and squeezed Adam’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. If I’d known it’d stick after you woke up--” 

“It’s okay. It’s just… it’s just all going to be a lot to process.” 

“I know.” Takashi let him go, a little reluctantly. “I already told Iverson you’re going to need some time to decompress after everything you’ve been through, and I think I might have kind of… maybe intimidated him a little?”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Just a little?”

“...maybe more than a little? Anyway, we don’t have to figure it all out yet. Just try to get some rest for now, okay?” Takashi patted him on the shoulder. “Is there anything I can get you right now?”

Adam thought about that. “Right now...” he said. “A hot shower and some actual clothes. A cup of coffee. And some solid food. Preferably hot but I’ve been living on emergency food goo for ....a month? I don’t even know anymore. As long as it has a flavor and I have to chew it, we’re good.”

Takashi gently steered him towards a chair and helped him into it. “On it.” He was out the door and waving down a nurse before Adam could say a single word to that.

 

* * *

 

 

They moved Adam to an actual hospital room a little while later, likely just until he could get that shower and that coffee and that food and get checked over to make sure he wasn’t going to keel over and die the second he was out of Medical’s hands.

Shiro might have pulled a  _ little  _ bit of rank to make all that happen. Just a little. Because dammit, after all the shit Adam had been through since he got here, never mind all the shit he’d gone through  _ before _ he popped out of that wormhole, he deserved a break and Shiro was determined that he was going to fucking well  _ get it  _ and if it became necessary to maybe pull just a  _ little  _ bit of rank on a few doctors to make absolutely sure he got it, well, that was what he was going to do.

He left the hospital just long enough to run to the BX and grab a few things--comb, toothbrush, razor, other miscellaneous toiletries, and a couple changes of clothes (the sizes of which Shiro had to guesstimate because again, this version of Adam had muscle his counterpart on this side hadn’t, and in the end he just grabbed his own size in the shirts and his own size plus a couple inches in the inseam in the jeans). He also bought one more thing. It was very likely something the nurses would frown upon him bringing in for a patient if they caught him, and besides that it hurt his soul to its very core to even handle it, much less exchange his own perfectly good money for it, but it was for Adam and again:  _ he deserved it, dammit. _

Adam was  _ still  _ in the shower when he got back with clothes and toiletries and coffee and  _ that  _ nasty stuff, and Shiro didn’t blame him. Last time  _ he  _ got stuffed in a cryopod, it took him the better part of an entire day to feel like he’d completely thawed out. 

He opened the bathroom door and a thick cloud of steam that looked and felt almost solid escaped into the room. “Just me,” he said, carefully averting his eyes from the vaguely Adam-shaped blur behind the curtain. “You okay in there?” 

“Uh huh,” came the response.

"Okay. I got you some clothes, just gonna leave ‘em right here.” 

“‘Kay.”

Shiro deposited Adam’s clothes on the bathroom counter, then went back into the main room and sat down in one of the comfy chairs to wait. While he did, he skimmed over the menu and made a face, and considered asking Adam if he’d rather just wait until he got discharged and get some actual food somewhere because  _ none  _ of this crap sounded good. 

The water eventually stopped, and a few minutes later: “Takashi? Did you happen to get any pants that don’t have buttons?”

Ah, shit. Right. “Sorry.”

“Uh…” A sheepish laugh. “Do you think you could… no, wait, I think I’ve got it.” A long pause. “Got it.”

Shiro thought about what Adam might have almost asked him to do and wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or disappointed that he didn’t need to do it.  _ Not the time,  _ he reminded himself.  _ Not the place.  _ Still, he made a mental note to loan Adam a couple pairs of his sweatpants or pajama pants or something later.

Adam came out of the bathroom a few minutes later in a fresh T-shirt and jeans, his feet still bare and his shaggy damp hair sticking out every which way. He started to go for the bag of assorted toiletries, but then he smelled the coffee and went for  _ that  _ instead. “Oh, thank  _ God,”  _ he moaned.

“Two creams, one sugar, right?” Shiro asked him.

He didn’t answer right away. Or, well, he sort of did--by grabbing the cup and chugging its contents with little regard for their temperature (Shiro’s own coffee wasn’t quite “boiling lava” hot at this point, but he thought it was still just a little too warm to comfortably chug). Then, and only then, he nodded. Shiro took a sip of his own coffee, and something like terror flashed across Adam’s face.

“What are you  _ doing!?”  _ he yelped, and moved like he was about to try and yank the cup out of Shiro’s hand. “You can’t...” He stopped. “...can you?”

Shiro blinked at him. “What?”

“Coffee doesn’t… you know... “ Adam gestured at the cup. “Give you any problems?”

“No? I mean, too much on an empty stomach kinda makes me jittery but...”

“Oh.” Adam shook his head. “Never mind.”

“...Okay.”

Shower taken, coffee drunk, Adam sat on the edge of the bed and took a look at the menu. 

“Ah--you know you don’t  _ have _ to eat hospital food, right?” Shiro asked him. “If you can wait till you get out of here I could get you something delivered, we’ve got some really good places in town that’ll--”

Adam shook his head. “Too hungry.” He made a few selections and hit the “place order” button on the screen. 

“Okay,” Shiro said, pulling that last item out of his jacket. “Think  _ this _ might take the edge off?”

“What--” Adam turned to look at the package Shiro was waving at him, and his eyes went wide. “Yes. Hell yes. Please.  _ Give.”  _ He held out his hand and made grabby motions with it, and his entire face lit up as Shiro handed him the bag. 

It was  _ really  _ impressive that Adam could do so much damage to a bag of black licorice whips so quickly with just his teeth and one hand.  _ “Mmf.”  _ He snarfed down two or three lengths of black death flavored candy at once, and Shiro cringed a little. Well… as long as Adam was happy, that was all that mattered. “Thanks. ‘S great but I’m still gonna be starving.”

“So…  _ emergency  _ food goo?” Shiro raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think we ever had to eat that kind, is it different from… y’know, the regular food goo?”

“Yeah.” Adam ripped another licorice whip out of the bag with his teeth and made it disappear. “Worse.”

“That’s possible!?”

“I mean, it’s…” Adam gestured vaguely with the nearly-empty bag. “It’s super concentrated, you get all the calories and nutrients and stuff you need for a whole day in a couple of spoonfuls, but…” He bit into the last remaining whip. “First, it’s only a couple of spoonfuls a day and it doesn’t fill you up and you’re still  _ always hungry  _ and second…” He pulled a face. “It tastes like  _ nothing.  _ It’s like swallowing your own spit but thicker.”

Shiro liked to think he wasn’t squeamish. Well, there was that thing where he absolutely could not stand Adam’s favorite candy and watching Adam inhale a bag of black licorice was making him feel like his taste buds were sort of huddling together in the middle of his tongue in terror, but mostly? After all the horrifying substances he’d seen, smelled, stepped in, fallen in, gotten thrown at him, and yes,  _ eaten  _ in space, he liked to think he could face anything, no matter how disgusting, and at least do a good job of pretending it wasn’t making his gag reflex sit up and take notice. But that… and that  _ description…  _

“Okay,” Shiro said, with a bit of a shudder. “That’s gross.”

Adam snorted out a laugh and finished off his last licorice whip.

An orderly brought Adam’s food in a few minutes later--meatloaf that may or may not have contained any actual meat, pasty-looking mashed potatoes, and a sad little pile of anemic-looking assorted overcooked vegetables, with a glass of milk and the obligatory cubes of Hospital Jello (green) in a little dish off to the side. 

It all looked hideous and Adam was bolting it down like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten, mushy gray broccoli and all.

Shiro just couldn’t contain his morbid curiosity any longer. “How is it?” he asked, and Adam snorted out a little laugh.

“Terrible,” he said around the last mouthful of meat(?)loaf. “I want seconds.” He looked up, and Shiro must have been making some kind of a face because he stopped chewing for a second. “Okay. I want seconds, but of  _ something else. _ ” 

“Now you’re talking.” Shiro nodded and Adam went back to destroying his Godawful hospital food. “They’re probably going to let you out of here pretty soon, so once we get you back to your place we can...oh. Shit. Problem.”

“What?”

“You kind of don’t have a place yet and we probably won’t be able to get you one until tomorrow morning?”

Adam swallowed a mouthful of potato paste and quirked an eyebrow at Shiro… and then something seemed to dawn on him. “Hey,” he said. “You said you missed me too.”

“Yeah,” Shiro said. “I did.”

“No, it’s just--I just realized something. I remember hearing you and Iverson and Sam and the Paladins but… I didn’t hear  _ me.”  _ Adam shook his head. “You knew who I was, so obviously there must be a  _ me  _ here, and you’d think Iverson would have wanted him in the room-- _ me _ in the room--oh, screw it, you know what I mean.”

Shiro winced a little at that. “There  _ was _ a you here.”

_ “Was.  _ Past tense.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh.” Adam eyed his tray and suddenly, he didn’t seem quite so eager to inhale everything on it anymore. “...how?”

“I don’t know if this is a good time to--” Shiro sighed. He knew better than to try and dodge when Adam asked him something like that. “Short version?” He shook his head. “The Galra hit Earth and your squadron got sent out first.”

Adam stared at the floor for a while. “How many did I take out?”

Shiro just shook his head again.

_ “Fuck,”  _ Adam whispered. 

They sat there in silence for a while, and eventually Adam set his tray on the bedside table.

“Listen…” Shiro cleared his throat, because dammit, he  _ knew  _ how this was going to sound, he knew every possible way it could sound like anything but the way he meant it to sound and even worse he knew damn well one of them (the one that went something like  _ I need you to stay within shouting distance of me at all times for the rest of my life, preferably closer but I’ll take what I can get _ ) was way too close to true but… “We’ll get you your own quarters first thing in the morning, but you can have my bed tonight. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“You don’t have to do that!”

“I know, but.… I’m kind of worried about leaving you alone tonight.” Shiro waved a hand. “All those memories. That stuff came back to me in bits and pieces at a time and it messed  _ me  _ up. You just had it all dragged back up to the surface at once and…” He sighed. “I wouldn’t feel right leaving you alone with it, is all.”

Adam was quiet for a minute, and seemed to be chewing that over. “Okay,” he finally said. “If it’ll make you feel better. I can sleep on the couch, though.”

“Nope. You’ve spent four days in a cryopod, you can have the--” 

There was a knock on the door. 

“Think that’s the doctor?” Shiro asked, and Adam shrugged.

“Hope so, I’m ready to get the hell out of here.”

Shiro got up and opened the door. 

It was not the doctor.

It was  _ everyone.  _ With Keith leading the way. 

“Hey!” he said. “We went to the pod ward, but nobody was home! Shiro, you should have said something--”

“Guys--” Shiro tried to maintain order here, he really did, but… “Hey, hang on, you can’t all come in here at once!”

Adam just sat there, wide-eyed. Shiro watched him for a minute. He noticed Keith first… then Lance, then…

“Matt,” he said. “Where’s Matt?”

“He’s fine,” Pidge said. “He’s off doing rebel stuff. With his  _ girlfriend.” _

“Oh, right, you said… so  _ you’re  _ in Green?”

“Yep!”

“Huh,” Adam said, and he laughed. “Okay, everyone listen up! In case you haven’t noticed I have _one arm!_ That means _one hug at a time!”_ Shiro had to turn away then, because hearing Adam slip right back into his Instructor Voice like he’d never left was just too much to keep a straight face at. “Line up single file, no pushing, no yelling, wait your turn, _Lance_ you have _no_ idea how happy it makes me to see you being your good old obnoxious self but this means _you!”_

 

* * *

 

 

The doctor  _ did  _ come not too long after Adam finished hugging his way through the relatively orderly line of Paladins, and after a cursory look over him declared him fit to send home.

And for tonight, “home” meant Shiro’s quarters. Shiro changed out of his uniform and into some sweatpants and a T-shirt, and Adam swapped his jeans out for a borrowed pair of shorts, and they sat on the couch with Adam flipping through channels until he found something he wanted to watch (or at least have playing in the background) and Shiro ordering some non-hospital food because the only food he had on hand was cup noodles, protein bars, and half a jar of peanut butter. 

So they sat there on the couch for most of the night, half-watching whatever Adam wanted to half-watch, grazing on assorted delivery food, talking about where their timelines synced up and where they split. 

“Can I ask you a really weird question?” Adam asked at one point, and Shiro nodded. 

“Ask me anything you want,” he said, though he did hope Adam stayed away from a few subjects… 

Adam brushed his fingertips over Shiro’s right shoulder. “How the hell do you sleep with this?” he asked, and, well… that sure wasn’t even on the list of weird questions Shiro might have been expecting. “It’s ...really bright. And it’s right by your face.”

“When I start getting sleepy it ...sort of powers down, I think? It takes a second to come back on when I wake up, so I guess that’s what it does.” Shiro laughed softly and shook his head. “That and black T-shirts. Or I just pull the covers up over it. Or sleep on that side. None of that blocks it  _ all  _ out, but if I’m having trouble sleeping at least it’s not shining right in my face the whole time.”

“Can I see it?” Adam asked, holding out his hand. “Your hand, I mean.”

“Sure.” Shiro laid his wrist in Adam’s open hand and Adam studied it for a while, flipping it over to look at the palm and the finger joints, running his thumb over the knuckles, turning it every which way with a little assistance from Shiro. “This is wild,” he finally said, the pad of his thumb tracing feather-light over the inside of Shiro’s wrist. “It’s warm.”

“Yeah. You, uh…” Shiro laughed softly, and couldn’t help but shiver a little. “You know I can feel that, right?”

Adam looked up, wide-eyed. “Are you serious? Do you think mine’ll--”

“Probably. Might even be better, mine was kind of Allura’s prototype.” Shiro turned his hand back over and curled it around Adam’s. “And you’ll probably get to keep your shoulder, so… no night light.”

“Oh.” Adam sighed, maybe in relief. “Okay. I mean… if that’s working for you that’s great but…” He laughed softly. “I’m just… deeply weirded out by the idea of my hand not being, y’know… physically attached to me. I can see how it might be--” He stopped there, and Shiro grinned because it wouldn’t be the first time someone caught themselves about to make a horrible accidental pun--  _ “useful.  _ No more trouble reaching the top shelf, I guess?”

“Oh yeah.” Shiro gently pulled his hand back and laughed. “I can even get a snack out of the fridge without getting off the couch now.”

“Can you send it down the hall to the vending machine?” Adam asked with a grin, and Shiro laughed again and shook his head.

“Tried it. Doesn’t work so well when it gets out of sight, it’s like feeling around with my eyes closed. Allura said she might be able to put a camera on it but…” He made a face. “I was on board with that until she got to the part where it’d feed straight to my visual cortex and… no thanks.”

“Eugh.” Adam shuddered a little.

Adam still didn’t want to talk about exactly why he’d flown the Kerberos mission, though, and Shiro… Shiro was hoping like hell Adam didn’t ask too many pointed questions about his medical history.

But he asked about Thace at some point and that… well, Shiro could answer that.

“I don’t remember meeting him in person. Keith did, though,” he said. “I wish I could tell you this is the reality where they both made it but...” 

“It’s okay.” Adam shrugged. “He wouldn’t know who I was on this side anyway, I was just wondering if he was… y’know. Around. What about Kolivan?”

“He had a pretty scary close call with one of Haggar’s druids but he’s fine, he’s been working with--you’re not going to believe this, but--Keith’s mom. Did you ever meet her?” Shiro asked, and Adam shook his head. “Well… you might get to now, they’re really busy with Blade stuff but she comes by once in a while.”

“I’d like that.” Adam rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Shit… speaking of parents…”

“We need to tell yours,” Shiro finished, and Adam nodded. “You want to call them now, or…”

“No.” Adam shook his head. “We need to do this over video. I mean… they think I’m dead, right? If they don’t see me they’re just going to think it’s someone being an asshole so... not until I get my arm back. And I just… I don’t think I can right now anyway, I’d probably just sit here and cry the whole time and they don’t need to see that.” He was quiet for a minute. “I need to go see Black, though. I can talk to it from here, but… I’m worried about it. I want to go see it in person.”

“Okay. We can do that tomorrow.” Shiro nodded and patted him on the shoulder. “I bet it’s worried about you too.”

“It is.” Adam leaned his head back and shut his eyes. “But it knows we’re staying on this side and we’re not going to try anything stupid as far as breaking into our side, so there’s that. It’s just...” He breathed out a soft laugh. “It’s seen some shit.”

“You both have.”

“When we first got to the Castle, Allura said the Black Lion wouldn’t fly without the rest of its Lions.” Adam huffed out a breath. “What if it doesn’t--what am I going to do if it doesn’t want to fly anymore? I can’t just  _ sit here--” _

“Hey.  _ Hey.”  _ Shiro squeezed Adam’s shoulder. “We don’t need to figure that out right this minute. I wouldn’t worry too much, though. Your Lion really loves you, y’know? After everything you did to save it...” He wasn’t quite ready to take his hand off Adam’s shoulder, but he was starting to feel like he’d had it there for too long. Adam didn’t seem to mind, though. So he left it there. “I think it’ll come around. It just needs some time. And so do you.”

“Time.  _ God.  _ That’s one thing we never had enough of,” Adam said, and was it Shiro’s imagination or was he leaning into that hand on his shoulder a little? “We were always running or fighting or--we couldn’t catch our breath, we’d win one battle and turn around and they’d be hitting us from two more directions at once--”

“I know.” Shiro rubbed Adam’s shoulder, and Adam let out a soft sigh. He was definitely leaning into that. “We’re in the middle of a war here too and yeah, having a second Black Lion in the fight would be a  _ big  _ help. But you don’t have to jump back into it right this minute. I’m not going to lie to you--the shit hits the fan on the regular. But we’re not alone. We’ve got lots of allies. Lots of backup you didn’t have on your side. And we get a little time to breathe in between, you know? It’s not going to--uh, is it...” Shiro cleared his throat. “Is it okay if I put my arm around you?”

_ “Please  _ put your arm around me.”

“Okay,” Shiro said, and he did. Adam shut his eyes and snuggled up against his shoulder. “After everything you’ve been through it’s not going to hurt anything or anyone if you take a couple of days to just do _nothing_. I’ll take you to see your Lion tomorrow if you want, but even if _it’s_ ready to fly I don’t want _you_ to. I want you to _rest._ I want you to sleep late and eat junk food and watch TV and do _whatever_ you want to do, as long as you can do it on the ground.” He laughed softly. “Don’t make me pull rank on you.”

Adam opened his eyes and looked up at Shiro. “Oh boy, here we go...”

“I’ll do it. You know I will.”

“Oh  _ please.”  _  Adam cracked a little bit of a smile. “No you won’t. You know better than that.”

“Okay, then.” Shiro pulled him a little closer and felt him relax a little more. “I’ll just have to…  _ ask nicely.”  _ Adam laughed softly at that, and  _ God  _ it felt good to hear him laugh after everything he’d been through. “Please take it easy for a few days.”

“Damn. You said the magic word.” Adam sat back up and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll stay on the ground until I get my arm back. That’s the best I can promise you right now. That and… I think I’m going to go steal your bed now.”

“I guess I’ll have to settle for that.” And here was another one of those weird moments that felt like it should have been awkward but it really wasn’t. It should have felt weird to have Adam right here next to him again. But it really didn’t. “I’ll be right out here. Yell if you need anything, okay?”

Adam nodded and kind of reluctantly slid out from under Shiro’s arm. “Okay.”

Shiro desperately wanted to kiss him. 

Instead he settled for squeezing his shoulder, and maybe letting his hand stay there a little longer than he needed to, and if Adam had a problem with that, he sure didn’t let on. Because  _ he  _ did the same thing a second later.

“Night, Adam.” 

“Night, Takashi.”

 

* * *

 

_ This is ridiculous,  _ Adam thought a while later, lying in Takashi’s bed, wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Not half an hour ago he’d felt so exhausted he could have slept standing up, four-day cryopod nap notwithstanding, and now here he was. Wide awake, staring at the ceiling. 

He had a lot to process. He knew that, dammit, but it would still be there to process in the morning and right now he needed to  _ sleep.  _ The bed was comfortable--nothing special, Garrison single officer standard issue, but it had nice clean sheets and a nice clean blanket on it and it smelled like Takashi and  _ oh, fuck it,  _ Adam thought, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, because he knew exactly why he couldn’t sleep.

_ How the hell was he supposed to sleep in one room when his dead husband was alive and well in the next? _

He padded out of the bedroom into the main room. It was dark--yeah, Takashi was asleep so his glowy shoulder was too. But if he squinted Adam could just make out Takashi’s shape stretched out on the sofa, half-covered with a thin blanket. “Hey,” he said. “Look… you don’t have to sleep on the couch.”

“Mmn?” came the drowsy reply. His shoulder woke up a little as well, just a faint bluish glow in the dark.

“I just... I understand if this is too much, hell, it’s too much for  _ me _ …” Adam scrubbed his hand over his eyes and sighed. “I still can’t believe any of this is happening and I  _ really  _ need to hold you right now.”

Takashi didn’t say anything for a while, and, well… yeah, fair enough. But then he heard a little chuckle.

“Well, come over here and hold me then.”

Oh, thank God. 

Adam picked his way through the dark main room and felt his way to the couch. He found Takashi’s bare foot first, gave it a nudge, and sat down where it had been. He felt Takashi sit up next to him, and he reached out to wrap his arm around Takashi’s shoulders and  _ God  _ yes that was exactly what he needed, just to feel Takashi against him again, alive and healthy and  _ warm.  _ Adam snuggled as tight against him as he could and wished Allura or Pidge or whoever would hurry up and get his other arm fixed so he could throw  _ that  _ one around him too.

“It’s okay, baby.” Takashi stroked the back of his head. “It’s going to be okay.”

Something about the tone of his voice didn’t seem right and Adam had a sudden urge to open his eyes and look up and at the same time he absolutely did not want to do that, because all at once he remembered this conversation, remembered where they’d had it, what set it off--

“You’re… you’re going to make history.” And suddenly Takashi didn’t just sound drowsy, he sounded like--like he barely had the energy to  _ breathe,  _ much less talk. “And I’ll be fine by the time you get back.”

Adam’s eyes snapped open. “Takashi,  _ no!” _

The room wasn’t dark anymore.

It was bright, too bright, four sterile white walls and white lights and the smell of harsh antiseptic and--no. No.  _ No.  _ Not this, not again--

_ “Champion!” _

Adam bolted upright, the four sterile white walls of Takashi’s hospital room gone, replaced with grimy metal and darkness and who knew how many other bodies crammed in against his and the sour, sick smell of far too many people living in far too small a space for far too long.

His arm ached--his left arm, the one the Galra had just put on him for reasons he didn’t even begin to understand. They’d used just enough anesthetic to keep him still and they didn’t bother waiting for it to wear off before they dragged him back to his cell, and every time he moved that arm it felt like the place where his flesh met metal was packed full of broken glass. The clean T-shirt and shorts he thought he’d gone to bed in were gone, replaced by all-too-familiar filthy prison garb.

“You were having a nightmare,” said an alien whose face Adam remembered but whose name escaped him. “Don’t envy you for dreaming of worse than this.”

Adam shut his eyes and groaned. He honestly wasn’t sure whether this was better or worse than that hospital room.

The cell door banged open then and two guards shoved their way in, sweeping too-bright lights over the cell and its occupants until they found what they were looking for.  _ Who  _ they were looking for. 

“Let’s go,  _ Champion,”  _ one of them half-snorted, half laughed in Adam’s direction. “We got a  _ real  _ fun fight lined up for you.” The other seized him by the wrist--his left--and yanked him up off the floor and by the time Adam registered that it was too late to bite back the yelp and deny this big purple asshole the satisfaction. 

At least he managed to choke it back to a grunt when they yanked his arms behind him and slapped the restraints on. 

As they marched him to what could only be the arena, Adam scanned the faces of Galra passersby, desperately looking for Ulaz or Thace or anyone he recognized, anyone on his side,  _ anyone-- _ but most of them were unfamiliar, and the ones that  _ were  _ familiar were…  _ no. _

This would be his stop. “Play nice, now!” one of the guards guffawed as he shoved Adam into the holding cell. 

The restraints fell away the second the door locked. There was one other door, and it led into the arena. There was only one way out of there: survive.

Somehow, on some level, Adam found himself disgusted by the ease with which he slipped back into the gladiator mindset. No time to dwell on that now, though. He clenched his left hand into a loose fist. Shield? He did have his shield, right? He held that hand out and called it, and it came. It set every single raw nerve ending in his shoulder on fire to call it up, but it came. Weapons… the usual selection. Sword that was little better than a sharp piece of sheet metal on a stick. Spear that was a smaller piece of sheet metal on a longer stick. And--impossibly-- _ his bayard. _

This, Adam would think later, should have told him something. But he was too deep into survival mode to make the connection now. Still, the bayard was by far the best option. What form, though? He guessed that would depend on what they were going to throw at him this time...

The other door opened. It was his turn.

The first thing Adam noticed that was off about the whole situation: the silence. 

The arena was a lot of things, but quiet? Never. Even on the slow days there were still enough Galra in the stands to generate a constant low rumble of crowd noise in the background. Not this time. Nothing but dead silence met Adam as he stepped into the arena. The stands were empty.

The second thing he noticed: the bodies.

He couldn’t see their faces. He didn’t need to. The armor told him everything he needed to know. 

Paladins. All of them. The sand under their bodies was dark with blood (and under the odd bits of blue armor scattered around the arena but no, Adam wasn’t going to think about that, he wasn’t, he fucking  _ wasn’t)   _

All of them dead. All but one. Tall. Purple armor. Marmoran blade in one hand, red bayard in the other, fighting for his life against someone Adam couldn’t quite see on the far end of the arena and Adam bolted, sprinting as fast as he could to join him, oh thank fucking God, if anyone had a chance to survive whatever the hell was going on here it would be  _ Thace-- _

But he didn’t. 

His opponent delivered a vicious slash from--from some kind of energy blade, Adam couldn’t quite tell what it was--but it didn’t matter. It found its mark. There was a strangled scream, and a splatter of violet blood on the sand, and Adam barely had time to register the fall of his last Paladin before he finally got a look at their opponent.

White hair. A scar across the bridge of his nose. A Galra arm, like Adam’s own, except the right instead of the left. 

“What the  _ hell,”  _ Adam croaked.  _ “Takashi--” _

But there was something off about him. Something horribly wrong. His eyes--Adam couldn’t quite put his finger on what was so  _ wrong  _ about his eyes, but they drilled into him like lasers.

“You look like your best friend just died,” Takashi called across the arena at him. “Oh. He  _ did. _ Hey, at least  _ he _ put up a decent fight.”

_ “What’s wrong with you?”  _ Adam shouted back. “Why did you--they were our  _ family!  _ They were  _ your  _ family!  _ Why did you kill them!? _ ”

“Come on, baby.  _ You’re _ the smart one. You already know, don’t you?” Takashi said with a shrug, taking a few steps closer to Adam, those horrible eyes fixed on his. “I just saved  _ you _ the trouble of doing it, is all.” It was more than just his eyes--everything about him was wrong, his stance, his walk, the sound of his voice, his scent, everything, it was Takashi but at the same time it was wrong, horribly sickeningly  _ wrong...   _

“Takashi--” Adam said, grip tightening on his bayard just a little and despite everything, despite the bodies scattered around the arena, despite knowing full well that if Takashi came at him it would be with intent to kill, he silently begged it to please be the staff. “Just… just  _ stop.  _ Okay? Please, let’s just… let’s get out of here, we’ll figure this out, it’ll be okay, let’s just--”

But they weren’t here to figure anything out, were they? This was the arena, after all. 

He was almost too fast, but Adam got his shield up just in time to block that energy blade. Through the shower of violet sparks, Adam could see that the blade came from Takashi’s own Galra arm. It made sense, he guessed. Takashi was right-handed, of course they would have given him the attack model--

Another slash, and another, and  _ another,  _ all lightning fast and full force--how long could Takashi keep this up? How long could Adam keep his shield up? Long enough for Takashi to wear himself out? It didn’t seem likely, if he’d fought and killed his way through seven other Paladins, all of whom could hold their own in a fair fight, and still had this much strength and speed left...

“Kind of funny when you think about it, isn’t it?” Takashi spat at him. “You’ve got this reality here where everything worked out pretty much okay, right? Zarkon’s dead. Lotor’s dead. All the Paladins are alive,  _ I’m  _ alive, Earth’s still here! Sure, we’ve had some rough patches but overall, it’s worked out. Everyone’s fine! Well... almost everyone. Too bad about Thace, I guess.” 

Adam glanced over Takashi’s shoulder. Thace’s body still lay where it had fallen, the sand around him stained black with his blood, and--that was enough. Adam clenched his teeth and activated his bayard. It came as the sword this time, potentially lethal but not unless he lost control,  _ which he was not going to do, dammit, no matter how much Takashi tried to get under his skin-- _

“And then you’ve got  _ your  _ side,” Takashi went on, whipping his blade at Adam’s head and meeting nothing but shield. “You know, the one where everything went to shit? Where everyone you ever knew or cared about is dead?” Takashi grinned then, and Adam had never before in his life seen something that filled him with such a deep visceral sense of  _ wrong. “Isn’t it funny how damn near everyone you ever loved is still alive and well in the reality where YOU died?” _

Adam lunged at him. This wasn’t Takashi. It couldn’t be. It had to be Haggar back on her bullshit again, one of her druids digging around in his mind, using what it found there to put on a face it knew would hurt him, like the one that tried to choke him out that one time--that’s what it was, that’s what it  _ had  _ to be because otherwise--no. No.  _ NO.  _ Adam wasn’t even going to consider the possibility. This wasn’t Takashi and that was  _ final,  _ and whatever it was, whatever was wearing his husband’s face and speaking in his voice, Adam wanted it  _ dead.  _

It was as if Takashi (or the thing that looked and sounded like him) could hear his thoughts. He knocked Adam’s bayard away like he’d seen it coming before Adam even thought about striking. The grin was bad. The laugh was far worse. ”Sorry, baby. It’s really me. But if it makes you feel better to tell yourself it’s not, go right ahead. Wouldn’t be the first time you bailed out of a reality you didn’t like, would it?”

_ “Shut up.” _

“Anyway, my point is... what’s the difference between the reality where everyone lives and the one where everyone dies?  _ You. _ ” Takashi parried Adam’s bayard away again and countered; Adam almost didn’t get his shield up in time.  _ “You’re _ the reason they’re all dead!” As it was, the tip of the energy blade grazed his shoulder, and just that shallow cut set every nerve in his shoulder on fire. “ _ It’s YOUR FAULT!” _

_ “SHUT UP!”  _ Adam caught another solid strike on his shield, and how much longer could he keep this up, how much longer could he keep forcing that shield up through the pain, how much longer could it hold against Takashi’s blade?

“You let them all die, and you started with  _ me!”  _ Takashi swung low. Adam wasn’t expecting it. The blade caught him across the knee, the tip slinging an arc of blood into the sand below. “You  _ fucked off to space _ and you left me in that hospital room and you left  _ Keith  _ there to bury me!”

_“I DIDN’T WANT TO GO!”_ Adam screamed back. “I _NEVER_ WANTED TO GO! You called fucking _Sanda_ behind my back and told her to send me! And then when I called you on it you _begged_ me to go because you couldn’t, I fucking _FOUGHT_ you on that every step of the way! You said--”

“You didn’t fight me hard enough and you know it. You’ve  _ always  _ known it.” Takashi grinned again and swung high, and Adam barely managed to get his shield up at all, his leg hurt, his arms hurt, everything hurt but none of it hurt as much as what this thing wearing his husband’s face was saying to him. “And you’re not fighting me hard enough now.” Another strike. “You should have given up and let Zarkon have the damn Lion back.” Another. “But it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” And another. “It’s not too late to fix this. It’s easy. All you have to do is stop fighting and  _ let me end it for you.” _

And this last strike was all Adam’s shield could take. The shield shattered on impact and he overbalanced, toppling over backwards, landing flat on his back hard enough to knock the breath out of him and Takashi was on him, knee in his chest, blade at his throat, hate in his eyes. Adam scrabbled in the sand beside him, trying to call his bayard but it wouldn’t come.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll make it quick.” Takashi’s voice was tender but there was that  _ grin  _ again as he drew his blade back to strike, “Because that’s how much  _ I love you--” _

The blade plunged forward into Adam’s throat and he bolted upright in the dark--heart pounding, breath ragged, T-shirt plastered to his back with sweat, a sensation like some cold, slimy thing wriggling in his guts, squirming up into his chest and wrapping itself around his heart and his lungs and his stomach and  _ squeezing-- _

 

* * *

 

There was a noise from the bedroom--Shiro wasn’t exactly sure what kind of noise, but whatever it was, it was enough to wake him--and his shoulder--up.

“Adam?” He sat up and squinted in the half-dark, at the half-open bedroom door. 

Nothing.

“You okay?”

Still nothing--wait, no. There was a sudden sound of movement in there. Just as Shiro decided maybe he better get up and go check on him, Adam burst out of the bedroom with his hand clamped over his mouth, stumbled to the bathroom, and--

Shiro cringed a little at the noise that followed all of that. 

“That’s a no,” he sighed. 

He made his way to the bathroom and turned on the light. Sure enough he found Adam half-kneeling-half-sprawled on the floor, hugging the toilet as best he could with one arm, breathing in shallow little hitching gasps. 

“Yeah,” Shiro said with a little gentle laugh, laying his hand on Adam’s back. “I don’t blame you. Food goo for weeks and then nasty black licorice and hospital food...” There were times when having an arm that was not physically attached to the rest of him was…  _ useful,  _ and this was one of them; he could grab a clean washcloth out of the drawer, wet it down, and squeeze out the excess with one hand and keep rubbing Adam’s back with the other the whole time. He still wasn’t quite used to having actual  _ feeling  _ in that hand, though, which was probably why it took a while for him to notice that Adam’s shirt was soaked, and under it he was shivering like a freezing newborn kitten. 

_ Shit. _

“Adam? Hey.” Shiro dropped the washcloth in the sink for now and sat down on the floor behind Adam, still rubbing his back.  _ “Hey.  _ Talk to me.”

Adam shook his head and gulped in a breath, and it came out in a deep, wrenching sob so forceful that his whole body just sort of curled in on itself, and that was all Shiro’s heart could take. 

He expected some resistance. But when he slid his hand up to Adam’s shoulder and gently tugged him back and whispered “c’mere?” Adam practically threw himself into his arms, twisting around to bury his face against the side of Shiro’s neck, his hand clenched tight around a handful of Shiro’s shirt, his whole shivering body convulsing in violent sobs that sounded like they were being physically ripped out of his chest. Shiro held him through it, stroking his hair and whispering _I’ve got you, I’ve got you,_ over and over, wishing desperately that he could just wave his hand and make all of Adam’s pain go away, knowing he couldn’t, that _nobody_ could, how do you even begin to do that for someone who’s grieving for an entire fucking _universe?_

But what he  _ could  _ do was sit there with Adam and hold him tight and whisper little reassuring things and just let him get it out of his system, for as long as he needed to, as many times as he needed to (because this wasn’t going to be the last time, Shiro knew that much from experience that was far too personal but he wasn’t going to think about that right now).

Shiro didn’t know how long it took and he didn’t care, but eventually Adam drew in one shaky but relatively slow and deep breath, let it out, and collapsed, utterly exhausted, against Shiro’s chest. Little by little his breathing slowed down and evened out and his grip on that handful of Shiro’s shirt loosened, until he was more or less still and quiet. He sniffled a few times, then cleared his throat softly. 

“Um,” he finally said, in a very small and shaky voice. “Need a tissue or something.”

“Oh…” Shiro remembered the washcloth in the sink, and once again found himself glad he didn’t have to get up to reach it. “Here,” he said, pressing it into Adam’s hand.

“Ugh,” was about all Adam could say to that, but he took the washcloth and wiped his eyes and nose and mouth with it. When he was done, Shiro took it from him and tossed it into the sink. Adam sat back, pressing his back against the cool tile wall.

“Wanna get off the floor?” Shiro asked, and Adam thought about that for a bit.

“I’m…” He rubbed his stomach. “Not sure I should yet.”

Yeah… he seemed calmer now, but he was still a little gray in the face. “That’s okay. Do what you gotta do. How about some water?” Shiro offered, and Adam nodded. “‘Kay.”

This time he  _ did  _ have to get up; fetching and filling a glass was a two-handed operation. He came back, handed Adam the glass, and sat down next to him again.

“Thanks,” Adam said. He took a few careful sips and set the glass down between his feet. “I’m sorry about, uh… all of that.”

“Don’t be.” Shiro said. “Besides… it’s not like this is the first night I’ve ever spent on the bathroom floor with you.” He caught Adam giving him a weird little look out of the corner of his eye and laughed softly. “I don’t know, maybe this didn’t happen on your side but… there was this one time the chow hall got hold of a shipment of bad… what was it, it was something I didn’t like anyway--fish sticks or egg salad or something--”

Something like recognition flashed across Adam’s face, and he leaned his head back against the wall with a soft thud. “Hot dogs,” he groaned. “It was  _ hot dogs!” _

“That’s it!” Shiro burst out laughing. “Man…  _ that  _ was a hell of a week, huh?”

“Oh God.” Adam laughed too, a weak and kind of shaky laugh but genuine nonetheless. “They had to cancel classes for the rest of the week because pretty much all the cadets were sick, half the  _ instructors _ were sick-- _ ” _

“Yeah. Including  _ you. _ ” Shiro grinned and patted Adam’s knee. “And I didn’t see the alert go out about the hot dogs that night because--”

“--because you were too busy taking care of me, and then you started  _ freaking out  _ because you didn’t know it was just bad hot dogs--”

“Well, yeah? You were  _ really  _ sick!”

“And about ten that night you finally just wrapped me in a blanket and threw me in the car and ran  _ every red light  _ between the house and Medical--”

“Okay, first of all--” Shiro held up a hand and tried (and failed) to keep a stern face. “There were only  _ two  _ lights between the house and Medical and second, I only really ran one of them, the other was still yellow when I got into the intersection!”

“--and you honest to God  _ carried me into the emergency room _ … and then you saw everyone in the waiting room and waiting in the halls and you kinda started figuring it out and--oh God, Takashi, your  _ face  _ when you _ \-- _ ”

“Oh  _ shit,”  _ Shiro groaned, and Adam dropped his forehead onto his knees, wheezing laughter. “And then I tried to check you in and the nurse was like--‘yeah he ate the hot dogs didn’t he, well we can’t really do anything for for him but top up his fluids and send him home--’” 

“‘Top up my fluids.’  _ What the hell was that!?  _ That  _ still  _ pisses me off!”

Shiro tried to continue, couldn’t because he was laughing too hard, and then tried again. “So now it’s almost midnight and you’re--you’re sitting there in this hard plastic chair wrapped in a blanket with a--an IV in your arm and  _ God  _ you were mad, you’re just sitting there all ‘WHAT AM I, A--’”

“--’A FUCKING  _ CAR!?’”  _ they finished in unison, and broke down into laughter.

Once it died down, they sat there in silence for a while, hands almost touching but not quite. Adam picked up the glass of water and took a couple more sips. 

“Better?” Shiro asked, and Adam nodded.

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a minute. “Is it just me or does it feel like… I don’t know. Like this  _ should  _ be weird or awkward or something, but…”

“...but it’s not?” Shiro finished, and Adam nodded again. “Nah. It’s not just you.”

“Good.” Adam said. “I, uh… I think I’m ready to get off the floor now.” Shiro nodded and got up first, offering him a hand up, and he took it. “Would it be okay if I just… sat with you for a while? Actually, wait.” He plucked at the hem of his sweat-sodden shirt and made a face. “I need to change first.”

“Sure.” Shiro laid a hand on Adam’s shoulder and gently steered him towards the bedroom, then went back to the main room and cleared the blanket and pillow off the couch.

Adam came out of the bedroom a few minutes later in a fresh shirt and went back to the bathroom. “I’m okay,” he said before Shiro could ask. The door closed. 

He came out a few minutes later and sat down on the couch, smelling lightly of soap and toothpaste. Shiro offered him the remote, but he waved it away.

They sat there for a while, more of that silence that should have felt weird but didn’t hanging between them until Adam finally asked, very quietly: “Is it okay if I put my head on your shoulder?”

“You don’t have to ask,” Shiro replied. “...Is it okay if I hold you?”

“You don’t have to ask either.” Adam snuggled against his shoulder and sighed. _ “Please _ hold me.”

So he did. He wrapped both arms around Adam and pulled him close. And it  _ still  _ didn’t feel weird or awkward or anything like that, but…

“Takashi?”

“Mm?”

“You don’t have to tell me about it right now but… I can tell things were different on this side. With us, I mean. You’re acting like you’re afraid you’re going to scare me off.” 

Shiro opened his mouth to say something about that. Nothing came out, so he just nodded. 

“Well, you’re  _ not _ going to scare me off. We were married on my side. I can’t  _ not  _ think of you as my husband. But if that bothers  _ you _ and you need some space… I understand.”

“No, that’s not--it doesn’t bother me! I just thought, y’know… not the time, not the place--” Shiro pulled Adam a little closer. “I mean. Yeah. This is all kind of overwhelming and I’m still not sure I really believe it’s even happening but…” He sputtered out a soft laugh. “Do you have any idea how much I wanted to kiss you goodnight?”

Adam buried his face in Shiro’s shoulder and laughed too. “Do you have any idea how much  _ I  _ wanted to kiss  _ you  _ goodnight!?”

“Man… we really need to sit down and talk about the relationship stuff later, but… you want the short version for now?”

“Sure.”

Shiro decided to take a little chance. He reached up, brushed Adam’s hair away from his forehead, and leaned down to press one single soft little kiss there. 

“Mm. Short and sweet,” Adam murmured.

“Not quite  _ that  _ short. I just… you’re right. Things  _ were _ different on this side but…“ Shiro kissed Adam’s forehead again. “This feels like a second chance and I don’t want to screw it up, y’know?” He closed his eyes and sighed, his breath ruffling Adam’s hair. “I still love you. I never stopped. And I’m going to follow your lead, okay?”

“Okay.” Adam nodded and snuggled against his chest. “Love you too.”

Yeah. They were going to have to sit down and have some serious conversations about a lot of stuff later. 

But for now, this was enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So far, everything was going pretty smoothly other than that little issue with Adam’s middle name, and even that got straightened out without too much difficulty.
> 
> The trouble started when they went to see about getting Adam some uniforms.

The sound of Shiro’s 0600 alarm coming from a direction it didn’t usually come from startled him awake. He’d meant to turn that off, hadn’t he? He felt around in the general direction the noise was coming from, found his phone, and poked on the screen until he found whatever would make it shut up. It was only then that he realized what the warm weight on his chest was.

Adam opened his eyes halfway and made a soft, sleepy little questioning noise, and Shiro shook his head and set his phone back on the end table. 

“It’s okay,” he said, reaching up to pet Adam’s hair. “Go back to sleep.”

“Mm,” Adam replied, and did.

At some point, Shiro guessed, they must have fallen asleep cuddling on the couch. And at some point Shiro must have settled back, and taken Adam with him, and… and this felt nice. Really nice. How long had it been since the last time he woke up with Adam in his arms like this? Way too long. Long enough for it to feel new and amazing all over again. 

Of course they needed to get up ...soonish, he supposed, there were some things they were going to need to do today, but none of it was so urgent that they needed to get up at the crack of dawn. Especially considering how rough the previous night had been.

Shiro lay there for a while, drifting in and out of sleep, idly tugging the wrinkles out of Adam’s shirt, smoothing it down over his back, savoring the warmth of Adam’s skin through the thin fabric under his hands. 

Separate quarters were probably a good idea for now. But the room across the hall from his was still empty, right? That might be nice, it’d give them space when they needed it and when they didn’t, well, they wouldn’t have too far to go--

Shiro’s phone made another noise then--it buzzed, dancing in place on the table. A call. Dammit, were they  _ really  _ starting this at six in the morning--

The noise woke Adam up as well, and… shit. Shiro laid a hand on the back of Adam’s head to distract him while he took a careful look at the screen. Two things: it wasn’t the call he’d been dodging, and it definitely wasn’t six in the morning anymore. He sighed and answered it. “Hey, Pidge.”

“Hey--uh, did I wake you up?”

“It’s fine.” Shiro patted the back of Adam’s head, and he settled back down but didn’t quite go back to sleep. “What’s up?”

“Well, you said to wait until Adam woke up before we started doing crazy stuff with his arm, and he’s awake, so...”

“He’s actually… not awake right this minute?” Shiro said. 

“Yes I am,” Adam said. “Is she calling about my arm?”

“Yeah, but I can have her call back later if you--”

“Nope. I need it back.” Adam sat up, rubbing his eyes, and Shiro handed him the phone. “Hey. How’s it coming? ...yeah? Nice. What? Yeah, like Garrison orange. Right.”

Shiro patted him on the shoulder and got up to put some coffee on.

“Uh huh. ...hmm, that might be a little much, maybe just on the-- _ yeah.  _ Oh  _ yeah. _ That sounds awesome. With the--oh  _ hell  _ yes. ...my bayard? Quarterstaff, usually… ”

Shiro grinned.  _ Called it. _

“No, no blades, but it’s got like, stun pads on the ends… yeah. If it’s too tight for that or I need a blade, then short sword… okay, yeah. Mm-hmm… it’s  _ way  _ stronger than the Paladin shield but it hurts to put it up… oh yeah, I’d definitely use it more if it didn’t. ...you can?  _ Nice.  _ Absolutely do that… uh… a  _ what now... _ ” 

Adam caught Shiro’s eye.  _ Grapple!?  _ he mouthed, looking mildly unsettled, and Shiro bit back a laugh.

“Ah… pass on that. No, no, it sounds cool as hell, it’s just…” He looked up at Shiro then. “Heh, we were actually talking about this last night but… I’d rather my hand be permanently attached to me, y’know?  _ …  _ no, like I said, it sounds cool but… it’s not me.” He laughed. “Right. So… wow, that soon? Yeah, I can probably come by today and… hey, do I have anything super important to do today?”

“A few things,” Shiro said. “But it shouldn’t take too long.”

“Okay. Sometime this afternoon? Cool. Thanks, Pidge. Bye.” He hung up. 

Shiro made a point of reaching across the room to take his phone back, and then made a further point of reaching across the room again to hand Adam his coffee. 

“Oh, now you’re just showing off,” Adam said, and Shiro laughed and poured his own coffee.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Adam needed was to get his ID and other assorted paperwork squared away. Fortunately, that was a lot less painful than either of them expected. All they needed was a retina scan, and that part was handled. Except when they handed Adam his new ID, he frowned at the name.

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asked him.

“Middle name.” Adam shook his head. “I mean. I guess it’s not  _ wrong,  _ it’s the one I was born with, but…”

“Well, tell them, they’ll fix it. What’s it supposed to be?”

“Shirogane.”

Shiro blinked at him. “Did we take each others’ last names as middle names?"

“Yeah.” Adam laughed softly. “It was your idea. You were pretty excited about it, you never had a middle name before.”

“Huh.” Yeah, Shiro thought that  _ did  _ sound like an idea he’d come up with. And as middle names went, a guy could sure do worse than “Wolf.” But that reminded him… the ring was still in his pocket, still on its chain. He took it out and showed it to Adam, letting it dangle from his fingers. “I almost forgot about this.”

Adam’s face lit up. “Your ring! I thought I lost it!”

“You didn’t lose it. You were still wearing it when Medical brought you in, so they gave it to me. I should, uh...” Shiro cleared his throat. “I should give it back to you. We… didn’t quite get to that point on this side, I don’t really feel right keeping it.” He held it out to Adam, and Adam took it. “I might have kind of tried it on, though.”

“Yeah?” Adam looked at the ring for a while, looked like he might put it back on around his neck… then tucked it into his pocket instead. “Did it fit?”

“Yeah.” 

Shiro thought again about why Adam might have been wearing  _ his  _ wedding ring and almost asked him… and decided this wasn’t the time or place. That, he figured, was getting into some of that stuff they needed to sit down and talk about later. But he was growing more and more certain that something terrible had happened to him on Adam’s side long before Lotor arrived on that version of Earth, and that it was going to lead to a conversation Shiro really didn’t want to have.

“Maybe I should leave it,” Adam said, staring at his ID. “If we didn’t--”

Shiro shook his head. “Doesn’t change the fact that we did on your side. But it’s up to you.” 

He ended up going back to the counter and getting it corrected.

 

* * *

 

The room across the hall from Shiro’s was in fact still empty, and Adam agreed that separate quarters were probably a good idea for now but separate quarters that were  _ really close  _ would be even better for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the practical one--as long as he was down an arm he was going to need a little help now and then, after all. 

The single officers’ quarters weren’t that big and they were already furnished with the necessities--main room with a couch, a couple of tables, and a little kitchenette area with a fridge, sink, and microwave; bathroom; bedroom with a bed, a dresser, and a small closet. So they didn’t need a  _ lot  _ of extras to get Adam settled, but he needed a coffee maker and a laptop and a phone and some other miscellaneous stuff. And Adam wanted some actual food in his fridge, so they made a run to take care of all  _ that.  _

So far, everything was going pretty smoothly other than that little issue with Adam’s middle name, and even that got straightened out without too much difficulty.

The trouble started when they went to see about getting Adam some uniforms. 

This should have also been a pretty painless process. Go to the counter, ask for a couple of Black Paladin uniforms with commander rank on the shoulders, and the supply clerk would send all that to a machine in the back along with the measurements they had on file and in a few minutes, that machine in the back would spit out a uniform. Adam would try it on, and if it fit the clerk would have the machine spit out two more. If not, it would get fed to the recycler while measurements were adjusted, to be reborn as a uniform that would hopefully fit the second time around.

Ah, yes… those measurements on file...

Later, Shiro would accept the blame(?) for this. He’d thought about it when he was buying T-shirts and jeans for Adam, after all, how it slipped his mind once they got to uniform issue was anyone’s guess, he could only chalk it up to still being a little tired and frazzled from the events of the past few days.

But Shiro stood there at the counter making pleasant small talk with the clerk while Adam was trying the uniform on, keeping an ear out just in case Adam needed some help with a button or a zipper or something and at some point he heard, from the general direction of the fitting room:

“Um... sorry, excuse me but… it doesn’t fit?”

Shiro looked up.

And looked.

And kept looking.

“Um,” Shiro said. He forgot how to talk. He forgot how to blink. He forgot how to  _ breathe.  _

“I’m not sure they’ve got the right measurements on file for me,” Adam said.

_ Oh, that’s right, _ Shiro thought but couldn’t say because  _ how talk!? _ Those measurements on file. They were for a different version of Adam, of course. One who wasn’t out of shape by any stretch of the imagination, but one who was narrower in the chest and shoulders and skinnier in the arm(s). One who would have been able to zip and button that jacket up instead of standing there with it stretched tight across his shoulders and around his biceps and and mostly open, and of course he’d taken his T-shirt off to try it on...

Adam looked back at him. “What?”

“Um,” Shiro said again. Some jackass part of his brain offered up an unsolicited image of him sliding his hands up under that jacket along with a casual reminder of just how long it had been since he’d felt Adam’s bare skin under his hands, and hey, had he considered what Adam’s bare skin with all that solid muscle under it would feel like and oh dear God, this was so not the time and so very, _very_ not the place. 

He tried not to think about it. Trying not to think about it just made him think about it twice as much. He knew he was turning red, he could feel his face approaching the temperature of the surface of the sun, and he knew that someday, once everything settled down, Adam was going to roast the absolute shit out of him over this and  _ he was going to deserve it.  _

He cleared his throat and tried desperately once more to use his words. “Yeah. Um… you weren’t that, uh… y’know...”  _ Ripped,  _ he tried to say but couldn’t, so he swallowed and gestured vaguely at his own shoulders instead.

Adam looked down at his barely-zipped, too-snug jacket. Was he  _ smirking? _ “So… I need measured again, is what you’re trying to say.”

Shiro just nodded. And somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if maybe they could keep  _ that  _ jacket. For… reasons.

 

* * *

 

Getting  _ that  _ straightened out and getting Adam a couple of uniforms took them into the early afternoon, so from there they paid Pidge and Allura a visit. And, well... to be honest, admonitions against mad science aside, Shiro was excited to see how Adam’s arm was turning out. This time they had his actual Galra arm to build on instead of the Earth tech they’d started from on his own, and it would be interesting to see how they refitted it with Altean tech.

He still couldn’t help but cringe when the first words out of Adam’s mouth upon seeing it were, very loudly: “OH MY  _ GOD!” _

Oh shit. What had they done?

Shiro couldn’t see it from where he stood, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He stepped forward gingerly, half-expecting to see… well, honestly, he had no idea what he expected to see. One of those hot rod flame paint jobs, maybe. Or some kind of Swiss Army knife craziness in the general shape of a hand.

Shiro steeled himself and prepared some very kind but firm words and looked down onto the workbench.

Well. Whatever he might have been expecting, that sure wasn’t it... and thank God for that.

Structurally, it looked pretty much the same as it had when they found it. It’d had most of its battle damage polished out, and they’d had to rebuild the socket since that was the point where Adam’s bayard had gone through it.

Aesthetically… it looked  _ badass. _

Mostly, it was a dark bluish-gray brushed steel finish. The knuckles were bright orange, and there were a few other accents in the same bright orange here and there--the elbow plate and the small Voltron  _ V  _ insignia that would sit just below his shoulder like a tattoo, and a few others but not so many as to be obnoxious. There was just enough of that bright orange to really stand out against that dark bluish gunmetal and it looked  _ amazing _ . The fingers and all their delicate little joints were covered in what looked like the same sort of thin but near-indestructible rubbery black “skin” they’d been covered with before, and it might have been the same actual material but the texture was completely different. It felt more like soft leather than rubber. More like… well, more like skin. 

And Adam was  _ losing every last bit of his shit over it. _

“Okay, so…” Pidge clapped her hands and rubbed them together with mad-scientist glee, “we don’t actually have the particle barrier stuff in yet, we still need to get some fittings back from the fab shop but that’s probably going to be either later today or first thing tomorrow. The short version: it’s gonna do everything your old one did but better, being Altean tech and all it might do things _we_ don’t even know it can do, and it won’t do the stuff you _didn’t_ want it to do.”

“Nice,” Adam said, flipping his arm over to check out the palm side.

“We had some people from Medical come take a look at it, too,” Allura said. “It looks like your, um…  _ problem  _ with the shield had something to do with it sort of… overloading its power supply and taking it out on your nervous system?”

“Kind of like when you first turned mine on?” Shiro asked, and Allura nodded.

“I still feel horrible about that.”

“Don’t. You didn’t know that was going to happen, and you fixed it. It’s all good.”

“Well... at least it won’t happen this time. The power crystal we’re putting in should more than cover that so… oh, just one thing--” Allura made a little face. “They said that since we had to rework the socket they  _ might  _ have to take a little more of your arm off to make this work but…not  _ too  _ much?”

“I’m fine with that.” He traced over a hexagonal opening in the palm, with a flimsy-looking plate tacked on to cover it.  “Hey, what’s this?” 

“That’s where the shield emitter’s going to go.” Allura shrugged. “That’s actually where it was all along, we just had to make a  _ little  _ more room for the new one.”

“So it’s going to be stronger?”

_ “Oh  _ yeah.” Pidge grinned, the kind of grin Shiro knew meant something dangerous was either about to happen or had already happened. “We got your Galra shield working and tested it out just for funsies and it was pretty tough, but this is going to be even  _ better.  _ We’ve already had some pretty impressive results from the test run. And of course by ‘test run’ I mean we set it up on the firing range and let Hunk and Lance go wild on it with their bayards.”

“Please tell me there wasn’t a live person standing behind it,” Shiro sighed.

“Nah.” Pidge shook her head. “We duct-taped it to a trash can.”

“Okay, good, that’s--”

“We may have also… sort of… tested its shield-bashing capabilities?” Allura offered up a little sheepish grin. “By smashing some fruit with it? Some, um… what did you call the big green one with the red inside and all the seeds?”

_ “Watermelons.” _ Pidge cackled. “Oh yeah.  _ That  _ was fun. Oh, don’t worry--” She flapped a hand in Shiro’s general direction, obviously sensing that he was about to have something to say to that. “Hunk wouldn’t let us bash them unless we promised to eat them. We’ve still got some in the fridge over there if you want it--”

“No thanks,” Shiro said.

Adam was already halfway to the fridge. “What?” he said, glancing at Shiro and whatever weird look must have been on his face over his shoulder. “I missed watermelon.” He reached in, found a manageably-sized chunk, and took a big bite. “Mmm. So… when do you think it’ll be ready to, y’know... put on me?”

“Tomorrow, maybe?” Pidge answered.  _ “Maybe  _ the day after, and of course from that point it’s gonna depend on what the surgeons have on  _ their  _ plates, but unless something just goes totally screwy with it I can’t imagine it taking any longer than that.”

Shiro caught Allura’s eye then, and he remembered something. “Okay,” he said to Pidge, “Maybe go ahead and give them a call right now? See if they can clear a time slot? He’s getting kinda antsy about getting his arm back.”

Adam leaned over and spat a few seeds into the trash. “I am not  _ antsy,”  _ he said. “I am  _ excited. _ ”

“Yeah,” Pidge said, “that’s probably a good idea.” And she ran off to do that. 

“Thanks, Pidge. Hey, I need to make a pit stop--” and here, Shiro indicated the nearest men’s room. Well, it was the most graceful way he could think of to remove himself from the room and leave Adam and Allura alone to talk for a minute. ”Be right back.”

His phone went off while he was in there and this time, it  _ was  _ the call he’d been dodging. 

_ Dammit. _

He almost answered it that time. Almost. Because he knew he needed to. He knew  _ someday _ he would have to suck it up and answer that call and make that damn appointment. He  _ knew _ that. Especially now that Adam was back.

But he swiped left and shoved the phone back in his pocket anyway. Not today. Too busy.

He came out of the restroom and just sort of hung back for a while, watching Adam and Allura talk. Or, well, watching them hug and talk, as much as Adam  _ could  _ hug with one of his arms lying on a workbench a few feet away. Good for him. Good for  _ both  _ of them. She really did feel bad about what had happened, and he knew Adam felt even worse about some things that had happened on his side. Shiro was glad to see them talking about it. So he left them to it for a while.

 

* * *

 

They needed to make one more stop: the Lions’ hangar.

The security cordon around Adam’s Lion was gone. It still sat there facing Keith’s; head down, barrier up.

“Hey, buddy. You okay?” Adam approached his Lion’s massive forepaw, and the barrier dropped. “Yeah, I’m glad to see you too.”

“Do you want me to wait out here?” Shiro asked. Adam shook his head and took Shiro by the hand.

It was still dark inside Adam’s Lion, too dark and too warm and too quiet. But just as Shiro thought that, he heard the life support system kick on and felt cool air on his face. The emergency lights flickered on next. 

“Feeling a little better, huh?” Adam whispered. Shiro felt something like a weak nod in response.

They made their way up into the cockpit, and Adam eased himself into the pilot seat. He laid his hand on the right control stick, leaned his head back, and shut his eyes.

Adam’s Lion didn’t wake up, not exactly. The displays stayed dark. No other machinery started up. The Lion didn’t move. But Shiro could feel its relief at having its Paladin back in the pilot seat. 

Shiro didn’t catch all of the conversation that happened, but he felt bits and pieces of it here and there. He had to smile a little when Adam’s Lion kept sending an image of the Green Lion followed by something that felt like _ small? yours? _ because he thought he knew what the Lion was getting at but didn’t want to interrupt.

“Are you asking me about my  _ arm?” _ Adam finally asked out loud. The Lion sent back a somewhat exasperated affirmative, and Shiro laughed. “It’ll be fine. They’re working on it. They said maybe tomorrow or the next day.” Adam paused, then burst out laughing. “No, they’re not going to paint it green!” Another pause, longer. “They’re fixing it so nobody will ever be able to use it like that again. Don’t worry.” Adam’s thumb caressed the control stick. “No. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Adam was quiet for a long time.

“I know,” he whispered after a while. “I know, buddy. I’m sorry. But at least you have... no, I know they’re not yours. But you can still talk to them though, right? ...well, that’s good.” He opened his eyes and looked up at Shiro. “Apparently your Black’s been filling mine in on everything that happened over here, and--wait. What?” Adam pulled a face. “No? He’s right here, you’ve been talking to him--what do you mean ‘he  _ was _ \--’” 

An excruciatingly long silence. 

_ Oh shit,  _ Shiro thought, because all at once he knew  _ exactly  _ what Adam’s Lion was telling him.

“Takashi,” Adam began in a tone Shiro knew all too well meant he was in trouble, “when the hell were you going to tell me you literally fucking  _ DIED!? _ ”

Shiro swallowed hard. “I got better?”

Well, at least Adam’s Lion thought that was funny...

 

* * *

 

All right, fair enough. He was going to have to explain the whole clone thing sooner or later anyway and this, Shiro supposed, was as good a time as any, might as well get it over with--and preferably in his office, because this really wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in the middle of a hangar, possibly with an audience. 

“You’re a _clone?”_ Adam spluttered the second the door slid shut, and Shiro held up both hands-- _please hear me out before you murder me,_ that gesture said. “No, forget that-- _you_ _literally fucking DIED!?”_

“Adam--listen to me, okay? Yeah, I died.”

_ “How the hell do you just say ‘yeah, you died’ like that!?” _

Shiro squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose like he was trying to stave off a headache. “Please just listen to me,  _ I’m begging you. _ We were fighting Zarkon, Black figured out how to do something crazy, my body couldn’t handle it, and I just kind of--went into Black, it’s hard to explain all of this but I swear,  _ I’m  _ not a clone! This--” He splayed one hand out over his chest-- _ ”this  _ is the clone.  _ This--”  _ he pointed at his head--”is  _ me.  _ Okay? It’s  _ me. _ It’s really  _ me.  _ You can ask the Lions if you don’t believe me. It’s just not the  _ body _ I was born with, is all!”

“So…” Adam shook his head. “Same software, new hardware?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“What the fuck.” Adam ran his hand through his hair, huffed out a loud breath, and plopped down in the chair in front of Shiro’s desk. “Just a normal clone, or like… an evil clone?”

“Eeh…” Shiro shrugged. “I thought ‘evil’ at first but… he really believed he was really me for a while, and then Haggar pulled his strings and then he went rogue. He was just doing what he was programmed to do, I guess. ...I think it was Haggar? I don’t know. I’ve--this is going to sound weird but I’ve got  _ some  _ of his memories but not all of them, and I don’t remember anything from the--the going rogue parts.” He shook his head. “I remember when he was happy, mostly.”

“Laser guided sleeper agent clone, that  _ does  _ sound like Haggar’s kind of bullshit.” Adam rolled his eyes. “And how exactly did  _ you  _ get into your laser-guided sleeper agent clone?”

“Short version? Keith kicked his ass, Allura pulled my consciousness out of Black and put me in the body.” He shrugged. “And uh… in case you were wondering when  _ this  _ happened--” He pointed at his hair. “Yeah.”

“What the _fuck_ , Takashi!” Adam looked horrified. “I mean. Not the hair. I like the hair--” He shut up quickly and shook his head, as if to recalibrate his brain-to-mouth filter. “Just-- _the rest of it!”_ He opened his mouth to say something. Closed it. Shook his head again. “This is not a conversation I was expecting to have today. Or _ever.”_

“It’s an exact copy, for whatever that’s worth? Look.” Shiro figured he was safe to approach now, so he stood behind Adam’s chair and laid his hands on Adam’s shoulders, giving them a little squeeze. “I’m sorry you found out like that. I was going to tell you myself, I just didn’t think this was the best time to have the ‘hey FYI I got a new body’ talk, y’know?”

“I know.” Adam leaned his head back and shut his eyes. “It’s not so much the ‘clone’ part that’s freaking me out as the ‘literally fucking  _ died _ ’ part. And--‘I got better?’  _ Really!?” _

Shiro burst out laughing and gave Adam’s shoulders another squeeze, and this time Adam rewarded him with a little noise somewhere between a purr and a groan. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have done that. That was mean.”

“Yes it was. So…” Adam laughed, a little sheepishly. “I’m going to be kind of mean back and ask you a borderline inappropriate question.”

“Oh shit,” Shiro wheezed. “Sure. Why not.”

“When you say ‘exact copy’ you mean…” Was Adam blushing a little, or was he still just really pissed off? “You mean  _ everything’s  _ the same _ ,  _ right? I’m not going to find any crazy surprises when we...” He cleared his throat. “...get back to that?”

“I mean  _ everything’s  _ the same _ ,” _ Shiro said with a little bit of a grin. “And to answer your next borderline inappropriate question… yes.” 

“...yes  _ what?” _

“Yes…” Shiro leaned down, close to Adam’s ear. “ _ All  _ of it turned white.”

Adam made a weird little choking noise and hid his face as best he could with one hand. Yeah, maybe he  _ was _ still pissed off, but at least he was laughing--and he was  _ definitely _ blushing.

 

* * *

 

Despite Adam now having a place of his own, he still ended up on Shiro’s couch for most of the evening. He wasn’t quite up to going into town and the chow hall was serving a lot of  _ nope _ for dinner so they had a pizza delivered and found something relaxing on TV to watch while Adam downloaded all the essential apps and stuff and got his phone set up the way he wanted it.

Shiro noticed Adam giving him that weird horrified look again when he first bit into a slice, but this time he didn’t say anything.

“Do we need to get you some glasses?” Shiro asked. “Or did you get your eyes fixed on your side?”

“Mmf.” Adam shook his head and swallowed a mouthful of pizza. “Need to get some glasses. I mean… I can function without them if I have to, but…”

“But you  _ don’t  _ have to anymore,” Shiro offered, and Adam nodded.

“Right.” He started another app downloading and took another slice out of the box. “And I can really do without the eyestrain headaches. ...but now that I think about it, I never had trouble seeing when I had my helmet on. Maybe the visor adjusted to compensate or something?”

“Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing Paladin armor’s ever done,” Shiro said, and he held out a hand. “Gimme your phone for a second.” Adam handed it over, and Shiro added him to the Paladins’ group chat. “Fair warning, it gets a little rowdy sometimes and Lance likes to shitpost so don’t feel bad if you need to mute it for a while. We’ve got more official ways of getting hold of you if we really need to.” Then he added his own number to Adam’s contacts. “And there’s me.” He handed Adam’s phone back. 

“Thanks.” Adam poked on a few more things and put his phone down. “I think I’ll be okay sleeping in my own bed tonight but if, uh…” He cleared his throat. “If I’m not is it okay if I--”

“Of course.” Shiro wrapped his arm around Adam’s shoulders and kissed the side of his head. “I live  _ literally across the hall from you,  _ okay? If you need anything you call me, text me, come bang on the door, whatever. I don’t care how late it is. It’s okay.”

Adam leaned into the kiss and then laid his head on Shiro’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry to have to ask you that, I know you need to sleep too.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Shiro pulled him close. “It happens to me too sometimes.”

“Oh.” Adam snuggled into Shiro’s shoulder. “Okay. Then how about this: I’ll call you if I have a rough night… if you promise you’ll call me if  _ you  _ do. Deal?”

“Deal.” Shiro rested his cheek against the top of Adam’s head. “Are you going to be okay on your own tomorrow? I’ve got some briefings and stuff that I can’t get out of.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ll probably just go see Black and then…” Adam shrugged. “I dunno, go harass Pidge about my arm some more. Maybe see about getting some glasses.” 

They finished their pizza. They finished whatever they were half-watching. Adam finished installing stuff on his phone. And it was getting late.

Shiro felt a little silly walking Adam to the door--like he said, they lived  _ literally across the hall from one another,  _ it wasn’t like Adam had far to go. 

But then he remembered how much he’d wanted to kiss Adam goodnight the night before and decided this time, he wasn’t going to pass up the chance.

And it looked like Adam had the same idea.

It reminded Shiro of the first time they’d kissed. They were seventeen and neither of them had any idea what the hell they were doing or how to hold their heads or where to put their hands. Shiro chickened out first. Then Adam did. Then they both just shut their eyes and went for it. It was a little clumsy and their teeth clonked together almost painfully a couple of times, but it was still somehow perfect.

There was none of that teenage clumsiness, no teeth colliding, and neither of them chickened out. They knew exactly how their lips would fit together and they knew exactly where to put their hands. Adam’s curled around the side of Shiro’s neck, thumb stroking along his jaw; Shiro’s found Adam’s hips and settled there, fingers idly hooking into the belt loops of his jeans. But it still had that distinct first-kiss feel to it. It was warm and slow and sweet and it was doing its damndest to leave Shiro weak in the knees and tingly in the spine for the rest of the night. 

_ God,  _ he’d missed this.

They said “good night” to each other and ended up kissing some more at least three times before they finally broke it off and Adam turned around and took the four steps across the hall to his own room. Shiro watched him in a daze, watched his door open, watched Adam step into his own room, watched the door close, went to touch the panel to close his own door and… couldn’t? 

Wait, something wasn’t right here, he could  _ feel  _ his hand, but he couldn’t--oh  _ shit! _

He took two steps towards Adam’s door--just as it opened again. And there was Adam, with Shiro’s hand still hanging onto his jeans and his shoulders shaking with barely-suppressed laughter.

“Um…” Adam looked down at Shiro’s hand and flashed him a little grin. “It followed me home,” he said. “Can I keep it?”

Shiro burst into helpless wheezing laughter and reeled his hand back in. Yeah… they were going to have to watch that in the future, weren’t they? 

 

* * *

 

Shiro’s phone went off while he was getting dressed the next morning. Not a call, just a text. 

_ Little help w/uniform pls?  _

He laughed and sent back a reply:  _ be right there but you can just wear civvies for now yknow. _

Adam’s reply came back a minute later:  _ yeah but if I’m gonna do nothing at least I can look official while I’m doing it :) _

Well, he couldn’t argue with that. 

When Shiro knocked on Adam’s door a few minutes later, he was surprised to see just how dressed Adam managed to get before he ran into trouble. It was mostly the belt that was giving him grief. And the boots. And that left sleeve. He’d almost figured out how to get the belt, pinning one end of it between his hip and the back of the couch almost did it. But it wasn’t supposed to sit at the hips, it was supposed to sit at the  _ waist  _ and that just didn’t quite work out. 

“How’d you sleep?” Shiro asked as he buckled Adam’s belt and tugged the hem of his jacket straight.

“Eh.” Adam waved a hand and sat down so Shiro could help him get his boots on. “No nightmares or anything this time, at least.”

“Well, that’s good, but--gimme your foot.” Shiro looked at the boot in his hands. “Other foot. Still not great?”

“Could have been worse, I guess.” Adam held out his “other foot” and Shiro put a boot on it. “Mostly it was just this weird feeling like--like my arm was sore. The  _ left _ one.”

“Ugh. Yeah, that phantom limb stuff  _ sucks _ .” Shiro tucked Adam’s pants leg into his boot and zipped it up. “Other other foot. Before I got this one I kept feeling like I needed to wiggle my fingers. It was driving me  _ nuts. _ ”

“Yeah.” Adam shook his head and watched Shiro put his other boot on. “It feels like if I can just make a fist it’ll go away but-- _ugh._ It’s _frustrating,_ more than anything.” He looked down at his mostly empty left sleeve. “Can you just kind of roll that up for now?”

“Sure--actually, hang on, let me run back to my room real quick.”

Shiro patted Adam on the knee and stood up, then took the four steps across the hall to his quarters. He found a little thing of safety pins in a dresser drawer and took the four steps back across the hall to Adam’s room.

He rolled Adam’s sleeve up and neatly cuffed it for him, then pinned it in place. “Want me to do the rest of them later?” he asked, and Adam shook his head. 

“Nah, hopefully I’ll have an arm in a couple days, this one should last till then.”

“Okay,” Shiro said, brushing a bit of lint off the back of Adam’s shoulder. “That, uh.” He cleared his throat. “That looks  _ really  _ good on you and I’d ask you if you think you’ll need help taking it  _ off  _ later but… borderline inappropriate?”

Adam spluttered out a laugh. “Honestly? I’m kind of tempted.” He grinned and leaned back against Shiro’s chest. “But I kind of get the feeling you aren’t quite ready to get too much into the physical stuff yet...”

Shiro nodded. “Yeah, not that I’m not thinking about it but--” oh, he sure  _ was _ thinking about it, just thinking about the way Adam looked in that too-small uniform jacket made his eyes glaze over a little-- “I think it might be a little much this soon. But like I said, I’m going to follow your lead.”

“Okay, good. And not that  _ I’m _ not thinking about it--” Adam shut his eyes and leaned his head back against Shiro’s shoulder. “Especially after the way you kissed me last night,  _ God-- _ but yeah, it’d probably be best if we go slow on this for now.”

“Sounds good to me.” Shiro turned his head and pressed a kiss to Adam’s temple.

“If we keep working stuff out on the fly like this we’re not going to have any serious relationship stuff left to sit down and talk about,” Adam said. 

“I’m sure we’ll come up with something.” Shiro laughed softly and kissed him again. “I gotta go to work. See you tonight? Hit me up if you need anything.”

“Mm.” Adam turned his head and kissed Shiro’s cheek. “Okay. See you.”

 

* * *

 

Black still wasn’t ready to fly.

It would  _ talk  _ to Adam, in that weird nonverbal way Lions talked to their Paladins, and it graced him with emergency lights and some cool air in the cockpit when he came to visit, but it wouldn’t really wake up. Its displays stayed dark. Nothing moved. 

_ I swear I’m not trying to rush you. I know this is hard for you too.  _ Adam sat there in the pilot seat, eyes closed, thumb stroking the right control stick.  _ I know you lost your family. I know you need to rest. But when you’re ready, we’ve got work to do on this side. _

Black replied with a soundbite from Adam’s own memory, a fresh one:  _ Even if  _ it’s  _ ready to fly I don’t want  _ you  _ to. I want you to  _ rest.

“All right,” Adam said with a little laugh, “that’s not fair.”

Black sent back something that felt a little smug.

“Hey now. Nobody likes a smartass--”

Adam’s phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen:  _ Garrison Med.  _ Huh. “Hello?”

“Hi, Commander Wolf?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Dr. Mehta from Garrison Medical.” She sounded friendly, and kind of excited. “Hey, we just had something of yours delivered. We hear you’re pretty anxious to get it back and not gonna lie, I’m pretty excited about putting it on you.”

Adam let that sink in for a minute. “Oh  _ hell  _ yes,” he finally said.

They hashed out the details--Adam would need to go in that afternoon just to sit down with the surgeon and have the “here’s what we’re going to do, here’s what you need to do before and after” thing, but… tomorrow morning. Hot damn, Pidge and Allura must have put in some serious overtime, and Adam made a mental note to send them something nice. What did they like? He’d met Pidge one time on his side and he had no idea what kind of Earth stuff Allura liked. He’d have to ask Takashi later.

He finished up with Dr. Mehta and hung up, then he sent Takashi a text:  _ who has 1 thumb & an appt to get the other back at 0800 tmrw? THIS GUY. Call me back when ur free. _

 

* * *

 

Adam was sitting in the waiting room at the eye doc a couple hours later when his phone buzzed in his pocket--Takashi must have gotten a break. “Hey.” 

“One thumb and--” was all Takashi could say before he broke into laughter, and Adam grinned.  _ “God.  _ So I’m guessing you’re going to need a ride there and back?”

“I’m gonna meet with the surgeon this afternoon to work all this out but… yeah, probably. I  _ might  _ need to crash on your couch, too? Or just leave my door unlocked for you, depends on how wrecked I am on pain meds afterwards, I guess.” 

“Probably a good idea.” Takashi laughed. “They gave me some stuff I’m  _ told  _ was pretty good but that was in the middle of the invasion so… by the time I actually  _ could _ spend a whole day stoned on pain meds I didn’t need them anymore.”

_ “Oof.” _

“So… what are you up to right now? I don’t think I’m going to be able to get away for actual lunch, but if you want to get some coffee or something real quick…”

“Sitting at the eye doc waiting on my glasses,” Adam said. “Figured I better actually get my eyes checked instead of just going off whatever prescription they had on file, after the whole thing with the uniforms--”

Takashi burst out laughing again. “I said I was sorry about that!”

“Yeah, I saw the way you were looking at me, that was not a ‘sorry’ look but I’ll save the  _ borderline inappropriate  _ part of that comment for when I’m not sitting in a waiting room.” Adam grinned. “So, fun fact: my eyes were actually a little  _ worse  _ on this side. Not much but enough to matter, I guess.” He craned up to try and get a look over the reception counter, but couldn’t see anything informative. “I have no idea how much longer I’m going to be here so… how about I just see you tonight?”

“Okay. I don’t  _ think  _ I’m going to be stuck here past five but I’ll let you know if I am,” Takashi said. And after a little pause, he added: “Love you.”

“Love you too.” Adam hung up and put the phone back in his pocket.

 

* * *

 

Their particular Garrison base was in the middle of the Arizona desert, so there were few trees or shrubs around to give Adam that  _ oh my God I can see ALL THE LEAVES  _ new-glasses joy. But the new-glasses joy came anyway, in a much slower-building form--within half an hour, tension he didn’t even realize had been building up over the course of the day just sort of leaked out of his head. 

No more constant ache in his arm (unless the phantom shit started acting up again, which it seemed to not do as long as Adam kept himself occupied in some way and after tomorrow, the phantom shit would trouble him no more anyway). No more eyestrain headaches. No more choking down a daily glob of tasteless goop only to have his stomach spend the next eighteen-plus hours growling for solid food it wasn’t going to get.

Adam tried to remember the last time he’d felt this good and couldn’t. Well… physically good, at least. 

Mentally… not so much.

The events that had led up to Adam being here hardly felt real now. It was easy to push them out of his mind while he went shopping and sat in waiting rooms and snuggled with Takashi on the couch half-watching something on TV, like a bad dream. 

But it wasn’t a bad dream. None of it was, and he had the scars--both physical and otherwise--to prove it. 

So many people he loved and cared about were going about their daily lives in this reality like nothing had happened. Because to them, nothing  _ had  _ happened.

It didn’t change the fact that it  _ did _ happen in Adam’s reality, and it didn’t keep Adam from replaying all of it in his head the second he ran out of things to do to keep himself occupied.

Takashi wanted him to rest, his own Lion wanted him to rest,  _ he knew  _ he needed to rest, but the last thing he wanted to do was sit alone in his quarters with nothing to do but think about everything that had happened, everything they’d dug up out of his head while he was in that cryopod. 

He needed something to do to keep his mind out of the past and on the present, and the busywork that was keeping him occupied these first few days wasn’t going to cut it for long. He needed to fly. And if Black wasn’t ready, he needed to fly  _ something  _ and he couldn’t fly  _ shit  _ with one arm.

So he did the next best thing--he walked. He found himself sort of wandering the base for a while after he got his new glasses, and he had a few hours before his appointment with the surgeon. 

Every once in a while a pack of cadets or a few instructors would stop him to welcome him back; apparently the word had gotten out pretty quick. There were a few who just sort of stared at him in shock. And a couple--not many, enough for Adam to count on his only hand and still have a few fingers left over-- _ glared  _ at him. He wondered if they’d lost loved ones in the invasion, and if they did, well… could he really blame them for being pissed off that  _ he  _ got to come back and  _ they  _ didn’t?

He stopped in front of a wall he’d heard of but hadn’t seen yet. It was covered in plaques bearing names and pictures, and here and there people had left flowers and stuffed animals and other tokens at its base.

Later, Adam would think of all the other names he wanted to look for but right now he was only interested in one. He found it towards the left-hand side, about elbow height.

_ Adam W. _

No scar, no white hair. The face was a little thinner. The glasses would have been a little stronger. That uniform would have been smaller. That left arm would have been flesh and blood, but that hand would have never had a wedding ring on it. 

The longer Adam stood there looking at his own name and his own face on that wall, the more he felt… he didn’t know what exactly, it wasn’t anything he could put a name to, but it was a tight little knot of something dark and prickly, sitting heavy in the pit of his stomach.

It  _ wasn’t  _ his own face, was it? Not exactly.

He slipped his hand into his pocket and closed it around Takashi’s ring. He’d almost protested when Takashi gave it back to him but… Takashi knew, didn’t he? They both knew. It  _ wasn’t  _ his ring. Not exactly.

Adam shut his eyes and groaned softly. He’d gone wandering around the base to keep his mind off this existential dumpster fire but it seemed determined to drive him bugfuck insane one way or another, didn’t it?

He felt someone standing next to him, just outside the boundary of his personal space, and opened his eyes to see who it was.

Iverson didn’t look at him, not directly. He stared straight ahead, at the plaque on the wall with Adam’s name and face on it. “Commander,” he said quietly.

Adam gave him a nod. “Sir.”

“Should we…” Iverson cleared his throat. “Should we take you off of there?”

“No.” Adam tried to keep the ice out of his voice, he really did, but Iverson was about the last person he wanted to talk to right now and standing here staring at his own name and his own face (but not really) on a memorial wall had just about exhausted his ability to care too much about his tone. “Me being here doesn’t change the fact that he died.”

Iverson didn’t say anything for a while.

“True,” he finally said. “It’s good to have you back.”

Adam gave him another little nod. “Thanks.” 

Iverson didn’t hang around much longer after that. He slowly walked the length of the wall, from one side to the other, glancing up and down at the names and faces of the dead, and then went on about his business.

Adam figured he should probably do likewise.

 

* * *

 

The appointment with the surgeon went pretty well. She was a little older than Adam, but not much, and she was very good at what she did and  _ very  _ excited about attaching this piece of advanced alien technology to a real live human person. Adam was a little nervous going into this, but it was hard to stay nervous while he was talking to her. 

She explained exactly what they were going to do and how they were going to do it, and she did it in normal human words. And maybe it would have been slightly easier if Adam had just worn a T-shirt and jeans like Takashi suggested, since she did want to take a look at his stump to get a better idea of how his arm was going to fit over it and what final adjustments might need to be made. And she sent him home with the standard list of before-and-after instructions.

His phone buzzed in his pocket halfway through the appointment, and when it was over he pulled it out and took a look. There was a text from Takashi:  _ heading home in abt an hour, feel up to going out yet or nah?  _ And that was from about an hour ago.

He sent back a reply:  _ Doc says not to eat anything after 8 but if that’s ok, sure.  _ After some deliberation, he double-texted:  _ Kinda nervous abt tomorrow. _

_ Still at the hospital?  _ Takashi texted back.

_ Yeah, just finished up. _

_ Want me to come get you? _

Adam thought about that for a second.  _ Pls,  _ he sent back. 

 

* * *

 

Takashi pulled up outside the hospital a few minutes later. Adam climbed into the car, and Takashi leaned over and kissed him. “Hey,” he said. “I don’t know about you but I could  _ wreck  _ a bowl of ramen right now.”

“Ooh.” Yeah, a nice big bowl of hot soup  _ did  _ sound good. “Had to skip lunch, huh?”

Takashi rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Over some  _ really  _ stupid stuff, too. We’re in the middle of a war and some pencil-pushers somewhere at Command think we’re not keeping good enough records of--” he flapped a hand. “Don’t worry about it. If I’d known this kind of rank meant having to put up with  _ this  _ kind of bullshit, I would have told them where and how far they could shove that stripe. How was  _ your  _ d--oh hey, new glasses!”

Adam laughed and wanted to reach over and pat Takashi’s knee, but couldn’t really do that with his right arm. “Yep. And the thing with the surgeon went pretty well.”

“That’s good.” Takashi stopped to wait his turn in the line of cars waiting to get out of the gate. “Still nervous, though?”

“Yeah.” Adam frowned. “I’m… not really sure why. Like… I really want this done, okay, I  _ need _ it done, but there’s just something about it that’s... “ He shrugged. “It’s probably nothing.”

“Well, it’s pretty major surgery,” Takashi offered. The line started moving, and he went. “Nobody’s going to blame you for being a little nervous about it.”

“Yeah.” Adam watched the late afternoon-lit desert go by out the passenger side window. “I guess you’re right.”

The restaurant they went to was the one Adam remembered as being Takashi’s favorite ramen bar on his side. Different name, but identical in every other way--decor, menu, beer list, logo,  _ everything _ . Takashi ordered the same thing he’d always ordered, and so did Adam. 

But when Takashi said “you know what, screw it” and ordered a beer Adam had to fight like hell not to let his gut reaction show on his face. It must have anyway; Takashi gave him a little nudge and reassured him that one (1) beer with a huge bowl of ramen to buffer it wasn’t going to affect his ability to get them home safe. Which wasn’t what Adam was worried about, it wasn’t even close, but if that was all Takashi thought it was…

Well, if he could drink coffee and eat pizza without any trouble, one (1) beer was probably fine. 

Probably fine for Adam too, come to think of it--he had a couple of hours before his pre-op cutoff time, so he ordered one as well. 

The massive steaming bowls of ramen that showed up in front of them a few minutes later looked and smelled and tasted exactly the way Adam remembered--velvety-rich pork broth and fresh noodles and soft boiled eggs and little sheets of nori and slices of pork that melted in his mouth and all the other delicious things they loaded it down with. It was comfort food in every sense of the word.

“Oh good,” Takashi said to him with a little sly grin a few minutes later, while Adam was shoving a wad of noodles into his mouth, “I don’t have to spend the whole night teaching you how to use chopsticks again.”

“Oh please. You loved that and you know it.” Adam gently elbowed him in the side. “You used it as an excuse to hold my hand.”

“I never said I didn’t enjoy it,” Takashi said, gently elbowing him back.

“And at least they took my stupid hand and left me the one that can do this.” He picked up a bit of nori by the corner and dunked it into the broth, working it into a tasty little bundle.

“Oh man. No kidding. I still haven’t quite gotten used to it.” Takashi slurped down some noodles and held up his right hand. He wiggled his thumb and the chopstick pinned under it. “I keep breaking this one.”

Adam ate his wad of seaweed and went about separating a manageable clump of noodles from the mass in the bowl. “Don’t know your own strength, huh?” He shot Takashi a little grin.

Takashi pondered that while he picked up a slice of pork and shook it gently; most of it fell back into the bowl, leaving a bite-size chunk trapped between Takashi’s chopsticks. “You know what?” he finally said. He ate the bit of meat and stared at his hand for a while. “I really  _ don’t. _ I keep thinking it might be fun to see how much I can lift with it, but...”

“Really?” Adam slurped a little bunch of noodles off his chopsticks. “Huh. Okay. We’re going to have to go to the gym after I get mine back, then. For  _ science.” _

“Okay, but only if you promise not to go nuts right away? You’re going to be pretty sore for a few days.”

Adam shrugged. “They threw me back into the arena the day after they put it on me the first time, can’t be worse than that.” He looked up, saw Takashi giving him a horrified look, and winced. “Sorry. That’s… that’s a really bad conversation topic for a first date, huh?”

“It’s okay.” Takashi reached up and patted Adam’s back. “I mean, they did the same thing to me, so you’re not wrong but… you don’t  _ have  _ to do that now.”

“I know, it’s just…” Adam fished around in his bowl to see if there was any pork left in it and came up with one more bite. “If I can’t fly, I need  _ something _ to keep me busy. I know you want me to rest but I literally  _ can’t  _ sit and do nothing all day, it’ll drive me crazy.”

“Okay. No, I get it. It’s okay.” Takashi nodded and let his hand slide down Adam’s back. “How about we start you on the MFE simulator after you get your arm back?” He held up his other hand. “This doesn’t mean I’m clearing you to fly the real thing. Or  _ any  _ real thing. Including your Lion. But if you need something to keep your mind busy while you’re on the mend, that’s as good a thing as any.” He gave Adam that little sly grin again. “So… quarterstaff, huh?”

“Yeah.” Adam laughed softly. “Maybe it’s not the coolest flashiest weapon but I kinda have a soft spot for it. You know why.”

“Uh huh. Because you could  _ hand me my ass  _ with it.” That little sly grin widened a bit. 

“I taught you a nice healthy respect for it, didn’t I?” Adam grinned back. 

“Oh yeah. Maybe when you’re up for it, you could teach the  _ Paladins  _ a nice healthy respect for it on the training deck. Test that shield out at the same time, too.”

“Mmm. Yeah, that sounds like fun.” Adam poked around in his bowl looking for solid bits other than the egg, which he preferred to save for last and only break open when the broth level in the bowl was low enough to not just make that precious soft yolk disappear. He frowned at the bowl for a second. How was he going to do this with one hand? Or should he just suck it up and ask for a spoon?

Nah, screw it. He picked up the bowl by the back edge and took a few hearty gulps of broth from it, and Takashi laughed.

“How long did it take me to convince you it was okay to chug from the bowl?” he asked, and Adam snorted.

“You didn’t.” Adam put his bowl down, wiped his mouth on his napkin, and squished his chopsticks across the egg to break it open. “Some little Japanese grandma overheard and  _ she _ had to tell me, and even then I thought you put her up to it.”

“Yeah,” Takashi said, picking up his own bowl to finish it off, “that sounds about right.”

 

* * *

 

Adam lay in his bed staring at the ceiling later that night, mentally running through his pre-op checklist for at least the fiftieth time.

No solid food after eight, nothing at all after midnight: check.

No alcohol after eight: he’d had one (1) beer at the ramen bar, long before that so… check.

Clean, loose-fitting clothes, i.e. a T-shirt and a pair of Takashi’s sweatpants: check.

A ride to Medical, be there an hour early to get checked in and stuff: check.

A ride home, because operating a vehicle under the residual influence of general anesthesia was a hard no: check.

A handler/babysitter for the next day or so, because being home alone under the residual influence of general anesthesia  _ and  _ possibly the influence of really fun pain meds was maybe not a hard no but a potentially really bad idea: check, not that Adam thought he’d need one once he was home, but better safe than sorry.

He had this. He was ready and by God he  _ had  _ this. By this time tomorrow, he’d have his arm back. One step closer to some kind of normal life. No more phantom shit, no more having to ask Takashi for help putting his clothes on, and no more sitting around doing nothing because there was so very little of what he did that he  _ could  _ do with one arm.

So… why the hell was he so damn  _ nervous? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been dying to show y'all the Uniform Issue Incident since day one, you don't even know how much I enjoyed writing that scene.
> 
> Almost as much as I'm gonna enjoy the Locker Room Incident scene next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam’s instructor brain told him he really needed to work through the course in order, but… he heard a cadet yelling at his instructor somewhere in the background, and...
> 
> “Aw, no, not THAT mission! C’mon, ma’am, just save us all the time and trouble and fail me right now!”
> 
> Adam pinged the crewman at the console. “You hear that cadet having a meltdown over there?”
> 
> “Yes sir.”
> 
> Adam grinned. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Shiro really didn’t blame Adam for being nervous about getting his arm put back on. Like he said, it _was_ pretty major surgery. And as much as Adam was looking forward to _having_ his arm back, nobody could blame him for not exactly being excited about the actual process of getting it reattached. And yeah, there were potential complications, and all kinds of unknowns. And even though Shiro was sure Allura had worked out the bugs from the time they hooked _his_ arm up, that didn’t necessarily rule out the possibility of new ones popping up--after all, they _were_ refitting a Galra arm this time.

So Shiro figured it was pretty much just normal pre-op jitters. Later he would ask himself why the hell he didn’t make such an obvious connection right away.

“You didn’t sleep much, did you?” he asked Adam on the way to the hospital.

Adam snorted out a mostly humorless laugh. “Don’t think I slept at _all.”_

He looked like hell, but Shiro wasn’t about to say that to him. “Still nervous, huh?” he asked, and Adam nodded. “It’s going to be okay. Trust me. Been there, done that and all.” He reached over and patted Adam’s knee with the proof of that. “Look at it this way, at least you’ll get to sleep for a few hours while they’re--”

Shiro heard Adam hiss in a sharp breath and felt Adam’s leg tense up under his hand. He glanced over.

Adam was staring straight ahead, and his face was starting to take on that grayish cast again.

And Shiro thought about the conversation he had with Iverson while Adam was in that cryopod, thought about Iverson’s comment about him being a pretty effective leader despite seeing more than his fair share of deeply traumatic shit, thought about his response to that, thought about _why_ he’d had a flashback and kicked an anesthesiologist in the face--

_Shit._

No, this definitely wasn’t just normal pre-op nerves. It was worse than that, and Shiro knew exactly what it was.

“Hey.” Shiro found a parking lot to pull over in. “Okay. I think I know what’s going on here.” He reached over and laid his hand on Adam’s back, rubbing slow gentle circles between his shoulder blades. “Let me ask you something. When you crashed in the desert and you got strapped to that table, were they trying to put you under?”

Adam nodded.

“Did you freak out about it?”

“I was freaking out about a lot of things at that point,” Adam replied in the careful, measured monotone of someone trying his damndest to keep his composure. “That might have been one of them.” And then it seemed to hit him. “...aw, _shit.”_

 “Well, _that’d_ explain it,” Shiro said, rubbing Adam’s back and trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “I’ve got the same problem. For the same reason.”

 “Maybe they can just… do the twilight thing on me? So they don’t have to--”

 Shiro shook his head. “Tried that. Ended up letting them knock me out after all. You don’t want to be even a little awake for this, trust me.”

 “Dammit,” Adam said softly. “Do you think they’ll let you stay with me, then? At least until I’m out?”

 Shiro nodded and pulled back onto the road. “Won’t hurt to ask.”

 

* * *

 

As luck would have it, Adam had the same anesthesiologist Shiro kicked in the face. Which was… a little awkward. But at least the guy had background info that would make explaining this a lot easier.

The poor guy looked a little nervous at first when Shiro pulled him aside, but after another round of profuse apologies he softened up, and he definitely appreciated the advance warning that he was likely to have the same ... _issue_ with Adam.

Shiro asked if there was maybe something they could give Adam to kind of take the edge off his anxiety, and there was. He asked if he could suit up and sit in there with Adam, at least until he was out, and he could.

A few minutes later he watched through the window while the anesthesiologist talked to Adam. Adam nodded at whatever he said, then lay back on the table and shut his eyes and let the anesthesiologist give him a shot of something. And then Shiro got waved back to don one of those Godawful sterile suit-and-mask combos.

Whatever they’d given Adam had kicked in by the time he was fully suited up, but he still recoiled a little when Shiro sat down and reached for his hand.

“Hey,” Shiro said. “Just me.”

“Oh.” Adam breathed out a little laugh and relaxed. “I _hate_ those fucking suits. Reminds me of--”

“Yeah. I know,” Shiro said, giving Adam’s hand a squeeze. “Me too. Just us human people here, though. You holding up okay?”

"Yeah. They gave me some stuff, I think it’s working but... are they going to let you stay?”

Shiro nodded. “Long as you need me to.”

“Okay.” He squeezed Shiro’s gloved hand.

The anesthesiologist came back a few minutes later; the surgeon followed him in. Adam’s arm sat on a table nearby, and Adam kept glancing over at it.

“Okay?” Shiro asked him, and he nodded.

“Just reminding myself this is worth it.”

Shiro squeezed his hand again.

“Oh, hey. I’m Dr. Mehta.” The surgeon extended a gloved hand to Shiro, and he let go of Adam’s hand long enough to shake it. “Adam, I know hearing someone in a creepy suit tell you not to worry is just going to make you worry more so I’m not going to do that.”

Adam actually laughed at that, and Shiro patted his hand. Yeah, he liked her. More importantly, he trusted her with Adam.

“If it helps, you’re both kind of a big deal, medically speaking. This is a _really_ exciting new field and it’s really going to help a lot of people.” She looked up at Shiro. “Wish I could have been here to do _your_ arm, but… middle of the invasion and all, you know how it was.”

Shiro gave her a nod. “I’ll look you up if I ever need an upgrade.”

“All right, I think we’re about ready,” the anesthesiologist said. He adjusted something on his panel. ”Adam, can you do me a favor and start counting backwards from a hundred?”

“Uh--” Adam swallowed hard, and Shiro stroked his thumb over the back of his hand. “A hundred… ninety-nine… ninety-eight…”

Shiro watched him carefully.

“Ninety-seven… nine… n six… ni…”

His eyelids were getting heavy. Okay. So far, so good.

“Ninefive… n… nnn…” He swallowed again and gulped in a breath. His eyes tried to open. “N-no,” he whined, “no, no, nono _no--”_ His shoulders jerked a couple inches off the table, like he was trying to get up, and Shiro held him back with a gentle but firm hand in the middle of his chest.

“Adam--” Shiro caught the anesthesiologist’s eye. He’d already backed up out of kicking range, thank God for small favors. “Hey. Okay. Look at me.” Adam didn’t seem to hear him, at least not right away; his hand shot out, looking for something to grab hold of to pull himself up, and knotted into a handful of Shiro’s sterile suit. _“Adam._ You’re okay. You’re safe. _I’ve got you.”_

Those were the magic words. Adam’s eyes, unfocused and half-open but still full of panic, locked onto Shiro’s.

“I’ve got you.” Shiro untangled Adam’s hand from his suit and held it between both of his. _“Breathe,_ baby.”

Adam gulped in another breath and jerked upwards again in another uncoordinated attempt to sit up, and Shiro started to fear that talking him down wasn’t going to work. But then he lay back and let that breath out slowly, if a bit shakily, and took another. And another, slower and deeper. “...’kashi,” he finally said, and Shiro felt him relax a little. “...’m still on Earth… right?”

“You’re still on Earth,” Shiro whispered, reaching up to stroke Adam’s hair back from his forehead. “You’re safe. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Go to sleep, baby. It’s okay.”

“Mmn. ...niney... five?” Adam’s eyes started to close again. “Niney… four. Nnn… three…”

And that was as far as he got.

Shiro stayed with him for a couple of minutes just to make sure he was really out. He didn’t move, didn’t make another sound. His eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell in a slow, easy rhythm.

“Boy,” the surgeon said, “he’s a fighter, isn’t he?”

“Yeah he is,” Shiro said.

 

* * *

 

Shiro sat out in the waiting room some four hours later with a cup of hospital vending machine coffee and some marginally nutritious vending machine lunch--again. He still didn’t really want to go too far, and he hadn’t really wanted to leave the operating room until Dr. Mehta practically begged him and said _no, seriously, this is not going to be quick and you are not going to want to watch any of it._

At least this time, he didn’t have to worry that Adam would get packed back off to his own reality the second he was out of sight. That was something. But he got his other daily nagging worry in its place--that damn call again.

Nope. Not today either. He had way too much going on. Couldn’t handle it.

Not too long after he got back with that coffee and those snacks, the operating room door opened and out came Dr. Mehta. She’d already taken off her gloves and was pulling her mask off. “I’m with him,” she said. “I hate these freaking suits too. We’re all done, everything went great. He’ll wake up in a few minutes, and then we’ll switch his arm on and see how it’s working. Go on back in if you want, no suit necessary this time.”

Shiro let out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding and thanked her, then headed back into the operating room.

Adam wasn’t quite awake yet, but he was heading in that direction. His eyes opened, just a bit, then closed again, and Shiro sat down and took his hand.

“Hey you,” he said softly, reaching up to pet Adam’s forehead.

“Mm--” Adam opened his eyes halfway, blinked a few times, and shut them again. “Ugh.” He yawned and licked his lips. “Water?”

“You gotta wake up first,” Shiro prodded, and Adam responded to that with the cutest drowsiest scowl Shiro had ever seen. “Hey. Who has two thumbs and did _great_ today? _You._ ”

“Huh!?” Adam’s eyes snapped open, and Shiro grinned. “Where--” He looked down at his left arm. “Can’t move it.”

“They have to turn it on first. And they can’t do that until they’re sure you’re awake.” Shiro raised an eyebrow. “So…”

_“Ugh.”_ Adam reached up with the hand that worked and rubbed his eyes. “Okay. _Okay._ ‘M awake.” He shook his head, as if to clear the fog out of it. “I think. Head still feels funny.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna for a while. But I think you’re awake enough,” Dr. Mehta said. “Okay, Now I’ve been told to warn you, it might feel a little weird at first, just give it a minute and it should be fine after that. All right?”

Adam nodded, and Shiro held on to his other hand. “Okay. Go for it.”

“Here we go…” Dr. Mehta fiddled with some stuff on her panel. Nothing happened at first.

And then Adam’s eyes went wide. _“Gaah!”_ That wasn’t a sound of pain or shock--it was the sound of someone encountering something so profoundly _weird_ that they just didn’t have any words to express how weirded out they were.

“You okay?” Shiro asked anyway, and Adam nodded.

“Yeah, just--gah.” He winced and hissed in a breath. “ _Gaah._ Pins and needles. Pins and needles!” His fingers--his _left_ fingers--clenched, released, and wiggled, and Shiro bit back the urge to laugh. Been there, done that.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing Adam’s back. “It’s gonna do that. You just have to ride it out.”

“How much longer is this--oh.” He shut up quickly and then looked down at his hand. He stretched his fingers out wide, clenched them into a fist, turned it over and released it and wiggled his fingers. “Oh. Oh, holy shit.” He grabbed that new hand with his right and rubbed his new fingers. “Takashi.”

“Mm?”

Adam rubbed his fingers some more. _“I can feel that.”_

Shiro grinned and squeezed his shoulder. “Told you.”

Adam sputtered out a laugh and just… started touching things. Anything he could reach. Anything he could get his fingers on. The operating table, his hair, his face, _Shiro’s_ face. “This is _wild,_ ” he said, reaching up to run his fingers through Shiro’s hair. “...ooh, soft. It doesn’t even hurt anym--” And then he overextended a little and hissed in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Okay,” he said rubbing his sore shoulder, “ _that_ kinda hurt.”

“Yeah,” Dr. Mehta said, “this would be a good time to give you that prescription for the really good stuff and also to remind you that it’s going to be sore for a few days so… don’t go swinging from the rafters or anything?”

 

* * *

 

“Please tell me a ‘hot dog’ isn’t what it sounds like,” Allura said, glancing over the chow hall menu while Pidge waved at the rest of the Paladins, who were already working on their lunch at their usual table.

They were done with Adam’s arm, but they’d learned some interesting things from setting it up, and so they’d spent the morning working on a possible firmware update for Shiro’s. Wouldn’t hurt. Also, Pidge had worked up a new batch of potentially useful (and potentially _fun)_ security tools. She’d already loaded them onto Adam’s arm, but Shiro would probably appreciate a new set of proverbial lock picks too...

“It’s not, but... don’t.” Pidge pulled a face and shook her head. “Not from the chow hall. _Never_ from the chow hall. Ask Matt about the Wienerpocalypse sometime.”

Right at that moment, Allura’s phone made its cute little notification noise. Pidge’s made a slightly less cute noise. They glanced over at the Paladins’ table, where Keith, Lance, and Hunk all looked down at their pockets, pulled out their phones, and took a look.

Okay. If it wasn’t any of them, it was either Shiro or Adam--more likely the former with an update on the latter.

But then the Paladins already at the table, all of them, just _lost it._

“Uh oh,” Pidge said, taking _her_ phone out of her pocket and checking it--that was the notification for the group chat, right? Right. So what were they all seal-clapping and cackling about?

It took her a minute to process what she was seeing… and then _she_ lost it.

Pidge knew she was going to have to explain the joke to Allura later when she could breathe and talk like a normal Earth human again instead of just wheezing and crying, and it was going to require a long Earth human pop culture history lesson, but...

It was a selfie of Adam with a big goofy grin, eyes a little unfocused, flashing a gunmetal, black, and orange thumbs-up. Shiro was there in the background, at what looked like the pickup counter at the pharmacy. He was shooting a look of mild concern or perhaps sudden creeping dread or both at Adam over his shoulder like he was suddenly having some serious doubts about leaving his still heavily-medicated boyfriend (they _were_ boyfriends, right? Pidge made a mental note to ask later because _boy_ that could be weapons-grade awkward) mostly unsupervised with a phone for the few minutes it took him to pick up Adam’s meds.

But what really sold it was the caption:

_Got my cybernetic arm done at Claire’s :)_

 

* * *

 

Shiro realized very quickly that he couldn’t very well just drop Adam off and put him to bed and leave, especially not once the anesthetic wore all the way off and he started on the good stuff.

Adam was convinced he was fine, and he _seemed_ pretty lucid. But then they stopped at the BX food court to grab him something to eat, since he hadn’t had a thing since that bowl of ramen the night before and he was _starving,_ and he asked the poor kid behind the counter what animal the chicken tenders came from.

In Adam’s defense, that would have been a perfectly fair question at the chow hall. Still, it didn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence that it’d be safe to leave him unattended for the rest of the day. But Shiro _had_ to take care of some official business, he _had_ to do it today, and he couldn’t drag Adam along with him--he’d need someone to keep an eye on him.

He shot Keith a text while Adam ate his lunch: _are you super busy or can I borrow you for a couple hours?_

The reply came a few minutes later: _not too busy, what’s up?_

_Can you hang out with Adam for a little while? Got stuff I can’t get out of, don’t wanna leave him alone right now._

_Sure,_ Keith texted back, and Shiro heaved a sigh of relief. _Where’s he staying?_

_Room across the hall from mine._

There was a long pause. Very long.

_It’s back on, huh? :D_

 

* * *

 

Adam was _fine._ Really. He was fine and he _had_ this and this time, he was _sure_ he had this.

Maybe he hadn’t exactly planned on finding out the hard way that he’d taken at least one very specific phobia with him when he escaped from the Galra. He thought he remembered something from just before the anesthetic kicked in, just a moment when he was _certain_ everything that had happened over the last few days was just a dream and he wasn’t going to sleep, he was _waking up_ and he was strapped to an operating table on a Galra prison ship again. And then he heard Takashi whispering little reassuring things to him, and he was pretty much okay after that. So yeah, that was pretty fucking terrifying at the time, but it was over and now he was fine.

And sure, his arm was a little sore. Not nearly as bad as the first time, though. He could actually move it without feeling like it was tearing his shoulder apart from the inside out.

He didn’t need a babysitter. He told Takashi that, a few times, on the way back to the officers’ dorm. He’d been fed, he had his bag of good stuff, and he was probably just going to climb into bed and catch up on the sleep he missed the night before, really.

But they got off the elevator and headed down the hall to Adam’s room, and Keith was leaning against the wall waiting for them. And that would have been fine, Adam thought, he still didn’t need a babysitter but sure, he’d enjoy catching up with Keith for a while.

It was the wolf that caught his attention.

He’d _heard_ Keith had some kind of space wolf, and, well, seeing as how he was sort of _named after them_ Adam thought it might be cool to meet the space wolf sometime but…

“Sorry,” Keith said, reaching down to give the wolf a pat on the shoulder. “Dunno why, but he was pretty determined to come with me. Is it okay if he stays?”

“Holy shit.” Adam crouched down and offered his flesh-and-blood hand, and Keith’s wolf gave it a sniff. “You’re _real!?”_

Keith and Takashi exchanged a weird look at that.

“Sooo… yeah,” Keith said as Adam reached up to give the wolf a scritch behind the ear, “Go do what you need to do. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, the wolf did most of the actual babysitting, but Adam was absolutely fine with that. There were worse things than lying on the couch with a friendly space wolf using him for a headrest. And the wolf let him up and even let Adam use him for a right-hand handhold so he wouldn’t have to grab the back of the couch and pull with his sore left arm when he really needed to get up. The wolf even walked with him to keep him moving in a more or less straight line, and then he went right back to using Adam for a headrest once he got settled back on the couch.

“Wow,” Keith said when the wolf plopped his big floofy head onto Adam’s chest, “he really likes you.”

“Does he have a name?” Adam asked, and Keith rolled his eyes.

“Okay, I like that you asked _if._ Because he doesn’t yet.” Keith shook his head. “Everyone else keeps calling him Cosmo. I keep telling them no, he’ll tell me his name when he’s ready, but… what can you do?”

Adam frowned and combed his fingers through the as-yet-not-officially-named wolf’s thick fur. His grandparents had been the same way about naming their dogs, hadn’t they? Had he already told Keith about that at some point on this side? Was that where he got that idea? And speaking of things Adam had learned from his grandparents… he’d never really bought into the spirit animal thing that much despite his parents and grandparents being determined to make sure he grew up with the best possible understanding of who he was and who his ancestors were, and that sort of stuff kind of fell in with that cultural education, but…

Maybe it wasn’t _this_ exact wolf he’d seen. Maybe it was just some imaginary space-wolf-like critter his dreaming mind conjured up when everything was going wrong and he was feeling particularly low. One that just _happened_ to look exactly like this one. Sure.

Or maybe there was something to all that spirit animal stuff after all. But this was definitely not a hole Adam wanted to fling himself down while he was riding out the aftereffects of four hours’ worth of general anesthetic and whatever they’d shot him up with before that.

“I think you’re right,” he finally said. “But wouldn’t it just be the shits if he decided he liked ‘Cosmo’ after all?”

“Can you not?” Keith groaned, but when Adam started laughing he couldn’t help but join in. “Can you please not?”

“Sorry,” Adam said, in a tone that implied he really wasn’t, “you gotta put up with my medicated crap until Takashi gets home.”

Keith laughed and reached over to scratch the wolf’s back. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“It’s about… it’s about your reality.” Keith cleared his throat and looked at the floor, absently tangling his fingers in the loops of his shoelaces. “Look… I know it was terrible and if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. After what we did to you I sure as hell don’t have the right to ask you _more_ about it but…”

Adam shook his head and ran his fingers through the wolf’s bountiful floof. “Don’t worry about it. What’s up?”

“I was just wondering…” Keith reached over to pet the wolf again. “You knew Thace pretty well, didn’t you?”

Well, that wasn’t what Adam was expecting. Not really. But, he supposed it made sense. “Yeah.”

“I just met him the one time, but he seemed really… he seemed like a really good person.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “He was.”

Keith was quiet for a long time.

“Could you tell me about him?” he finally asked.

Adam thought about that for a while. He’d had his parents and grandparents to teach him who he was and where he’d come from. Keith didn’t have the benefit of parents or grandparents to give him that kind of cultural education, not until pretty recently. And besides…

Thace had asked the same about _Keith,_ hadn’t he?

“I think he would have wanted me to,” he finally said. “Where do you want to start?”

 

* * *

 

Shiro fully expected that when he got back to the dorm that evening, Keith would let him into Adam’s room, and Adam would be passed out quietly in bed.

Keith had to let him in, yeah, but it was the reason _why_ Keith had to let him in that threw him.

“Hi,” Adam said with a wave (with his new left hand, of course, probably just because he could, almost certainly just because he could). “I’d hug you but I can’t get up. Got a wolf on me.”

Man… that wolf _really_ liked him.

 

* * *

 

So Shiro thanked Keith profusely for pulling a couple hours of Mildly Stoned Boyfriend-Sitting Duty (and yes, confirmed that it _was_ in fact back on and no, he didn’t mind if Keith told the rest of the Paladins or anyone else really, it wasn’t like they’d _ever_ kept it a secret). Keith and the wolf took off after Adam got one more good scritch in, and Shiro couldn’t help giving him one too because that wolf sure had some _majestic_ floof, didn’t he?

Once they were gone, Shiro scooped Adam’s feet up off the couch, slid under them, and set them back in his lap. “How’s your arm?” he asked, and Adam grinned and gave him a thumbs-up with it. “No more phantom shit?”

“No more phantom shit.” Adam wiggled his fingers. “It actually feels pretty good? Little hitch in the wrist though…” He held it up and demonstrated, and Shiro frowned.

“Give it here,” he said, holding out his hand. Adam did, and he gently bent that wrist up and down a little. “Hmm. Yeah, there it is. Let me try something real quick…” He straightened Adam’s wrist out, wrapped his hand around it, and gave it a quick, firm squeeze. _Something_ popped faintly in there, and Adam yelped softly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you--”

“No, no, it didn’t hurt, it just felt kinda _weird_ is all--” Adam pulled his hand back and tried bending his wrist again. “Oh wow, you got it.”

“Well, at least for now,” Shiro said, patting Adam’s knee. “If it comes back, you might want to go see Pidge.”

“Mmm. ‘Kay.”

“So…” Shiro flashed Adam a gentle little grin. “How high are you right now?” and Adam waved a hand (again, his left, just because he could) in a kind of _so-so_ gesture.

“Maybe a little,” he said.

“Maybe a _little?”_ Shiro laughed, and Adam nodded.

“Haven’t taken the good stuff yet,” he said. “Just still kinda goofy off the anesthetic and whatever they gave me before that and no actual sleep and all.”

“You haven’t taken a pain pill yet?” Shiro squeezed Adam’s knee. “You haven’t _slept?_ Adam, _no!_ Come on!”

Adam waved that left hand. “Haven’t really needed one yet. I mean, it’s sore but like… maybe a two? Three if I try and pull myself up with it? More like a one just lying here? Besides,” he said with a little shrug, “didn’t wanna sleep while Keith was here because we were talking about interesting stuff and also I don’t wanna fuck up my sleep schedule any more than it already is.”

“I am giving you as much time off as you need to recover from this and all the rest of the shit you’ve been through,” Shiro said, with a gentle little poke just below Adam’s ribs, right in the ticklish spot, and Adam rewarded him with a squeaky little yell. “So _please,_ I’m begging you, get all the sleep you want and worry about unfucking your schedule later.” He rubbed Adam’s leg, from knee to ankle and back a couple times. “I know you’re excited about having your arm back and I’ll stay and cuddle you all night if that’s what it takes, but you gotta promise me you’ll get some sleep.”

“Mmm. Driving a hard bargain, there.” Adam started to grab the back of the couch with his left hand to pull himself up, caught himself, and held out his right hand to Shiro instead. “Pull me up so I can switch ends. Actually, wait. I gotta pee.” Shiro laughed softly, stood up, and took the offered hand, giving it a gentle tug to get Adam onto his feet.

Adam stood there for a second to get his balance. “‘Kay. I got it from here.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

Adam flashed Shiro a gratuitous left-handed thumbs-up and shuffled to the bathroom. There were no alarming noises, nothing crashing or breaking, no tactical F-bombs, nothing like that, just the sort of sounds one would expect. He came out a couple minutes later, and after a detour to the bedroom to grab a pillow and a blanket, he shuffled back to the couch. “...you know what, maybe I _will_ take a pill,” he said, and Shiro nodded.

“Yeah, if you don’t you might wake up tomorrow wishing you did. Trust me.” Adam tossed him the pillow. “And what do you want me to do with this?”

“Put it under your head?” Adam replied, with an unspoken _duh?_ tacked onto the end of it. He got himself a glass of water and shook a pill into his hand. “Then I can use you for mine.” He took his pill and chased it with half the glass of water.

“”Mmm. Good idea.” Shiro kicked his shoes off and stretched out on the couch, and Adam just sort of arranged himself on top, with his head on Shiro’s chest and his shiny new arm draped over Shiro’s waist. “You want that blanket on you?”

“Mm-hmm.” Adam murmured, and Shiro pulled it over him.

Whatever “good stuff” they’d given Adam, it was apparently not the kind that would knock him out. Which was probably for the best. But it did relax him, and so Shiro guessed it sort of _indirectly_ helped him sleep, and it wasn’t long before he was out.

They lay there like that for a while, until the last bit of evening light left the window and the room grew mostly dark. Adam had left the bathroom light on for easier navigation in the dark, and although Shiro’s shoulder was sort of mashed into the couch, it still cast a faint blue-white glow. Just enough for Shiro to look down at Adam’s sleeping face.

He couldn’t help reaching up to brush Adam’s hair back from his forehead, and Adam made a contented little drowsy noise as he did.

“Sorry,” Shiro whispered. “Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“‘S okay.” Adam snuggled back in, pressing his ear against Shiro’s chest. “Mmm. Your heart sounds different.”

“It does?” Something about the way Adam said that sent a chill down Shiro’s spine, but if Adam noticed it he wasn’t letting on. “Different how?”

“Strong.” Adam’s left hand snuck under Shiro’s shoulder and he let out a soft, contented sigh. “‘S nice.”

“Adam… was I... “ Shiro felt the words stick in his throat, and he swallowed like that would knock them loose. “How long were we married?” he finally asked instead.

Adam was silent for a while, and Shiro thought, with some degree of relief, that he’d gone back to sleep. “Two months before I left,” he finally said. “Kinda fuzzy on how long after.”

Two _months?”_ From the way Adam had been talking, Shiro got the impression that they’d been married a _lot_ longer than that. “That’s all?”

“Mm-hmm. _Married_ married.” Adam nodded against his chest. “We moved in t’gether pretty much straight outta the academy but… you wanted to make it official n’ stuff before you left for Kerberos. In case something went wrong.”

He was quiet for a long time, and now Shiro really, _really_ hoped he’d gone back to sleep.

“‘M glad we did,” Adam murmured. “Didn’t think it’d go wrong _before.”_ He opened his mouth to say something else, and instead shook his head and pressed his ear back against Shiro’s chest. “But you’re okay now,” he whispered.

Shiro laid his hand on the back of Adam’s head and stroked his hair. Yeah. The conversation Adam really didn’t want to have and the conversation Shiro really didn’t want to have were definitely going to intersect sooner or later.

He knew what he needed to do about this, but...

_Fuck._

 

* * *

 

Okay. 0600 alarm coming from his hip, slightly muffled. That was a new one.

Shiro groaned and felt around the general vicinity of his hip pocket, eventually fumbling his phone out of it. “All right,” he said, mashing the button, “I’m awake, shut _up._ ”

He smelled coffee and...sausage? Bacon? Something good.

And he felt Adam kiss his forehead. “Morning,” he said, setting a mug of black coffee and a freshly microwaved breakfast-meat-on-a-biscuit thing on the end table. “I woke up around five and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

“Muh.” Shiro sat up, rubbing sleep gunk out of his eyes. When did _he_ finally stop staring at the ceiling and fall asleep? No telling. Obviously sometime before five. Way too late, that was for sure.

But there was coffee, and there was hot breakfast--frozen and microwaved hot breakfast, sure, but it wasn’t a protein bar and a couple spoonfuls of peanut butter straight out of the jar and it wasn’t chow hall powdered eggs. And it was great because Shiro needed a gulp of caffeine and a bite of protein before he could brain any more. “How’s your arm?” he asked once he’d gotten them, and Adam strolled over with his own coffee and biscuit.

“My arm,” Adam began as he set his breakfast down on the other end table and gently scooted Shiro’s feet onto the floor and sat down, “feels _great._ Still a little sore but… ” He shrugged. “I know I shouldn’t go crazy with it right now but seriously, I feel like I could _punch a Robeast in the junk._ ”

Shiro almost spat out his coffee. “Oh shit, here we go.”

“It’s just… _God.”_ Adam laughed and took a bite of his biscuit. “I feel _so much better._ I can _do_ stuff again.”

“Okay. _Okay.”_ Shiro reached over and rubbed Adam’s shoulder. “Settle down there, punchy. If you want to go to the gym after I get off I’ll go with you and we can test _mine_ out, but you gotta promise me you won’t go crazy with _yours_ today.” Adam gave him the most withering side-eye. “Look, just _trust me on this one,_ I guarantee you will regret it tomorrow if you do. Voice of personal experience.”

“All right, all right. I promise I won’t try to like… bench press you or anything. Yet.”  Adam rolled his eyes. “Actually I was thinking I’d go see Black and then maybe poke on that MFE simulator.”

Shiro nodded and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re gonna love it. The cadets are gonna hate seeing you back in it though. You used to write the most _evil_ sim scenarios.”

“Huh.” Adam thought that over for a minute. “Hey,” he finally said. “Stand up.”

“Um... “ Shiro put his coffee down and did, because he didn’t know what else to do. “Okay?”

Adam threw both arms around his shoulders and held him tight. “Mmm. Oh yeah. _That’s_ better.”

Shiro just laughed into Adam’s shoulder and wrapped both of his arms around his waist. “Mm- _hmm.”_

 

* * *

 

All right, so maybe Adam _would_ miss Takashi helping him get dressed in the morning. Well… maybe they could still do that just for fun once in a while, but… never mind that. Borderline inappropriate.

Had he really only been down an arm for a week, give or take a few days?

And yeah. The new one was still a little tender. But better by far than the first time around. It felt different, too. Aside from the actual _feeling_ in it, there was… well, it was hard to explain. It felt a lot like his Lion in some way he couldn’t quite put words to.

He was dying to see what the shield was like now, but there were some things he needed to do first.

Adam found his armor and bayard in Black’s cockpit. Either Takashi or Keith must have brought them in, after… right, he’d done some pretty significant damage to his armor, hadn’t he? It must have taken a couple days for that to fix itself. He wasn’t planning on armoring up yet, at least not until Black was ready to fly again or he got a chance to spar with the Paladins, whichever came first, but holding his bayard felt good. It shouldn’t have, he thought, considering the last thing he had to do with it. But it felt like getting his arm back felt. A little closer to normal. A little closer to being able to _fight_ again.

“Hey,” he said, settling into Black’s pilot seat. “Sorry I didn’t come see you yesterday. But look what I got.” He put both hands on the control sticks and grinned.

Black seemed to recoil at first, like it expected pain, and Adam understood why--it remembered the last time that hand had touched it. But then it calmed down. And then it got _curious._

“It’s okay.” Adam patted the control stick. “Go ahead.”  

Black seemed to be feeling around the edges of his new arm. It definitely recognized Allura’s touch in it.

It still seemed a little disappointed he hadn’t painted it green, and Adam rolled his eyes and laughed. “I like orange,” he said, and felt something like Black rolling _its_ eyes.

He sat there for a while, just relaxing in the pilot seat and letting Black check his arm out.

“How long has it been since we came through that wormhole?” he asked. Black sent back the answer: eight days, it actually had to double-check that with Keith’s Lion because it hadn’t calibrated its systems for Earth time until a day or two after they arrived. “So… a little over a week, huh? That’s, what…” He did some quick and extremely dodgy math. “About a movement? Give or take a quintant or two?”

Black didn’t have anything to say about that.

“My point is… you’ve never been down this long. Not since I’ve known you.”

Black sent him an image: the other four Lions. The Castle.

“I know. I’m sorry. And I know the ones here aren’t yours, and them being here doesn’t change what happened on our side. Believe me. _I know._ ” He thought of Earth, and Takashi, and the Paladins, and his family and friends and everyone, everyone who was alive and well in this reality but not in the one he’d come from. “But I need to fly again. And I want it to be with you.”

Takashi’s voice: _even if_ it’s _ready to fly--_

“I know what he said. I know he means well. And I know I’m not a hundred percent yet. But I’m getting in a sim later on, because I need to fly, and if you won’t then I’ve got to learn to fly something else until you do.” He sighed. “We can’t just sit here forever. I’m not trying to rush you but… you know this connection runs both ways, right? You know I can tell you could wake up right now if you wanted to. You know I can tell you could _fly._ ”

A long silence, then something like Black shaking its head slowly. The Lions again. The Castle again.

“All right.” Adam sat back and shut his eyes. “When you’re ready, you let me know. In the meantime I’m going to keep coming to see you _every single day._ I’m still your Paladin. We’ve still got each other. No matter what.”

 

* * *

 

Adam thought he’d cruise by Takashi’s office just to see what he was up to, but he was out. Yeah, no surprise, they were keeping him busy these days. Well, might as well go check out the simulators.

On the way there, he noticed someone up ahead--right, he hadn’t talked to Coran yet, had he? Not that _this_ Coran would remember him, but still, he at least wanted to say hello.

“Hey, Coran!” Adam called down the corridor, raising one hand in a friendly wave. “Listen, I know you don’t really--”

“Oh! Hello!” Coran waved back. Who was he talking to, anyway? A short alien. With… an awful lot of arms. Adam had seen this guy before. He knew it. “Good to see you up and about! We were _just talking_ about how fascinating all this alternate reality business really is--”

The short alien spun around to face Adam. _“You!”_ he stammered, pointing more fingers than strictly necessary down the hall, right at Adam. “I have been _dying_ to meet you! _”_

“Oh _shit!”_ All right, in Adam’s defense that Garrison uniform threw him off but... yep, that sure was Slav and Adam sure could not deal with him today. Or tomorrow. Or _ever again._

But Slav clearly had other ideas. He was barrelling down the corridor… right at Adam.

“No! Slav! _Stop!”_ Adam spluttered back, backpedaling and possibly even treading air for a few seconds. “D-don’t come any closer! I saw a crack in that tile and someone spilled some coffee over here a minute ago-- _think of the alternate realities, Slav!_ ”

But no amount of backpedaling would deter the little guy. Slav just sort of _launched_ himself at Adam, curling up into a fuzzy cannonball and slamming into Adam’s chest, knocking him onto his back. “I _am_ thinking of ze alternate realities! _You’re_ from an alternate reality! Please, you must tell me ALL about it!” Slav pleaded, latching onto the front of Adam’s uniform. “You can leave out ze icky parts if you vant, but--vait, you know me! You have _met_ me! Forget ze icky parts, tell me about _me!_ ”

“You’re _exactly the same!_ ” Adam grated out. “Coran, for the love of God _get him off me!”_

_“Slav!_ Get a hold of yourself, man!” Coran, bless him, scurried over and gently detached Slav from Adam’s uniform. “Terribly sorry about that, I knew he was _excited_ to meet you but…”

“Not your fault, Coran.” Adam got back to his feet and dusted himself off. “It’s fine. Just--” He gave Slav his sternest Superior Officer Glare. Coran had him by the back of the collar, ready to offer some gentle--or not--encouragement to _stop._ “It’s _all_ icky parts, Slav. Not now. Please don’t ask me again.”

“All right, all right…” Slav met that Superior Officer Glare with his own Slightly Mad Scientist On A Mission Glare. “I’ll let you off ze hook _zis_ time.” He shot Adam way too many fingerguns as Coran diplomatically led him away.

 

* * *

 

Looked like today was a heavy simulator day for the cadets, so Adam wouldn’t be able to get as much stick time as he would have liked. But at least they could get him in for a few missions up front, and if he hung around for a while maybe they could squeeze him in for a few more in between classes.

He stuck his head into the MFE simulator before he actually did anything with it just to make sure everything was where he expected it to be--generally if you could fly one fighter you could fly them all, but the last thing he wanted to do was get into this thing and find out that _nothing_ was where he expected it to be.

But no. Every fighter he’d ever flown was laid out pretty much the same way, and the MFE-Ares was no exception. All the important stuff was exactly where he expected it. Throttle on the left, stick on the right, trigger on the stick, yellow and black switch on the right panel, yellow and black handle under the seat. Everything else was gravy.

“Load me up Baby’s First MFE Mission,” Adam said to the crewman running the thing.

There was a chuckle over the comm. “Baby’s First MFE Mission coming right up, sir.”

This one was just a basic get-to-know-your-fighter sim. Basic maneuvering, a tour of the instrument display, and a little easy target practice on a couple of stationary drones. Adam was looking forward to the _really_ fun ones, because even in Baby’s First Mission he got the feeling that these things went unspeakably fast and handled like a dream. But for now, this was exactly what he wanted, just to get a feel for the controls.

He finished that one up without anything wild happening. Well… now what?

Adam’s instructor brain told him he really needed to work through the course in order, but… he heard a cadet yelling at his instructor somewhere in the background, and...

“Aw, no, not THAT mission! C’mon, ma’am, just save us all the time and trouble and fail me right now!”

Adam pinged the crewman at the console. “You hear that cadet having a meltdown over there?”

“Yes sir.”

Adam grinned. “I’ll have what _he’s_ having.”

A muffled laugh. “Yes sir.”

Now this… _this_ was more like it. There was a time in his career when Adam would have found this one ...maybe a little tough? It was still challenging enough to keep him on his toes, with this being his first time in the MFE simulator and all, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. Asteroid field? Tricky but not impossible. Dogfight vs. two enemy fighters in said asteroid field? That was kind of wild. Navigating in extremely close quarters, instrument failure, sensor interference? All of that was fun in the same way a root canal was fun, but he’d flown through worse in real life.

When he was done with _that_ one, he looked over his results and raised an eyebrow. Apparently he’d just taken the record away from a... Cadet J. Griffin. Huh. Why did that name ring a bell? Was that the kid that was always picking on Keith back in the day?

Also, something seemed a little off--it was the difficulty rating. They’d rated this one way too high. 4.6 on a scale of one to five? It was challenging, yes. But not _that_ challenging. Not even close.

“Hey,” Adam said, “who do I need to talk to about a problem with the sim?”

“I can pass any questions or comments you have on to the right folks. What’s up?”

“There is no way in _hell_ that mission was a 4.6.”

“I think that cadet having the meltdown over there would beg to differ, sir.”

“I’m serious. Yeah, it’s got some fiddly bits but it’s not even close to that hard. I could run it with my eyes closed.”

“Ah… right, sir. I’m sure you could...” The crewman running the simulator laughed nervously. “...seeing as how _you designed it.”_

“...I did?”

“Come see for yourself.”

Adam popped the hatch and the crewman waved him over to the console. Sure enough, in the field where the developer’s name went: _A. Wolf._

“Oh. Wow. So I did. I’ve uh. I’ve slept since then.” Adam coughed and scratched at the back of his head. “So I designed sim missions on this side too, huh?”

“Some of our favorites, sir.” The crewman grinned. “The cadets, not so much.”

“Huh,” Adam said again. And then he thought of something. He was an instructor, wasn’t he? And he did have a reputation to uphold, didn’t he?

He grinned back. “Hey… I’m going to need access to the editor again.”

 

* * *

 

Some of the instructors liked to write what Adam referred to as Kobayashi Maru Bullshit--that being, impossible missions.

Adam didn’t. He never did. He hated those. Some of the instructors that liked them tried to justify it with some nonsense about how the choices the pilot made along the way were more important than the outcome or some crap like that. Adam didn’t buy it. If he wrote a mission, there was a solution. Period. It might not be obvious, there might be false trails and red herrings that led to what _looked_ like Kobayashi Maru bullshit, but there was _always_ a solution.

Because at the end of the day, the whole damn point of the simulator was to throw a pilot into any number of crazy situations they may or may not ever encounter in real life so that when the shit hit the fan in real life, they would be able to react to it appropriately and not freak out. And Adam firmly believed that there needed to be positive reinforcement in order for it to stick.

“You did everything right but you fail anyway” was a lesson _life_ would teach them sooner or later, and life lessons were outside the scope of Adam’s job. His job was to teach people how to fly, and people learned best when they were rewarded for making the right decisions.

That said, Adam had at one point owned a coffee mug with the words “Cadet Tears” screen-printed on the side of it, and he had proudly kept it in plain view on his desk. He might have also had the same mug on this side. His sim missions  were notorious for making cadets and sometimes grown-ass pilots and--on at least one occasion-- _Takashi_ cry.

And that was _before_ he found out what kind of crazy situations a pilot might possibly encounter outside their solar system. Outside their _galaxy._

Adam could already tell he was going to have to make a few modifications to add some of the crazy situations he actually _had_ encountered in real life. Wormholes. Cloaked enemy ships. Narrow paths between gravity wells. Volatile gases that would make the pilot’s own weapons blow up in their face. Giant free-roaming space monsters that would actually literally _eat your fighter._ Hell, he could come up with a whole course based on _Thayserix_ alone.

It occurred to him as he jotted down some ideas that having escaped some actual Kobayashi Maru Bullshit himself in real life, designing sim missions around all the places and events that led up to that might not necessarily be the healthiest thing for him to do.

All right then. Hard rule: nothing based too closely on any specific location or event. File off the serial numbers, mix stuff up, step away if it starts to dig up anything terrible.

And make sure there’s always, _always_ a solution.

 

* * *

 

Adam managed to fall down a deep enough sim scenario brainstorming hole that he barely heard his phone go off later that afternoon.

It was a text from Takashi: _done w/work. Gym?_

He sent back a reply: _yes please. Also I met your Slav today._

A long pause.

_Oh no,_ Takashi finally texted back.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t go for the weight room right away. That was going to be more just… screwing around with cybernetic arm fun times than actual exercise. And after a week of sleeping in a cryopod and then doing nothing (Shiro would beg to differ about that “nothing” but never mind that), Adam wanted to get some actual exercise and Shiro was fine with that. He hadn’t had a chance to go for a run himself since… well, since before Adam showed up.

So they found two empty treadmills next to each other and went for a nice run and talked about the day they’d both had, just like they used to do.

“I’m really sorry about Slav,” Shiro said. “I should have warned you he was around, maybe said something to him but--”

“It’s fine.” Adam laughed a little. “So… he’s _like that_ on this side too, huh?”

“Yyyyyyyeah. Hey, you found your armor and stuff, right?” Shiro glanced over, and Adam nodded. “Okay, good. I’ve had it sitting in my cabin on the _Atlas_ for the last couple days so it’d fix itself faster.”

“Oh, cool,” Adam said. “Speaking of the _Atlas,_ I guess I’m gonna need a cabin on there too, right?”

“Already got you one.” Shiro kicked the incline up on his treadmill a couple degrees and grinned. “We’re sharing a bathroom.”

“Oh, so it’ll be like the academy again.” Adam shot him a wink. “Except without Iverson writing us up for sneaking into each others’ rooms after lights out.”

Shiro laughed and reached over to pat him on the arm. “Hopefully we won’t have to ship out anytime real soon but I figured y’know, if the shit _does_ hit the fan… better get that all squared away now while it’s quiet, y’know?”

“Yeah, good idea. So…” Adam kicked the speed on _his_ treadmill up a little. “Since I’ve got my armor and my bayard back, maybe we could do a little, y’know…” He looked over at Shiro and wiggled an eyebrow. “Rough and tumble on the training deck. With or without the Paladins, whichever’s fine.”

“You sure you’re up for that?”

“Pretty sure.” Adam wiggled that eyebrow again. “It’s not like I’m going to be, oh… _getting into a fistfight with Sendak.”_

_“Shit,”_ Shiro wheezed, and Adam laughed. “Keith told you about that, didn’t he?”

“My source didn’t want to be named,” Adam said, shooting Shiro a sly little grin, “but if he did he’d probably be named Keith, yeah.”

 

* * *

 

Well, here was something the average gym rat didn’t see every day: two guys with robot arms--and one of them with a hand that didn’t even appear to actually be connected to him--walking into the weight room.

The really serious ones didn’t even look up. Not until they noticed the guy with the floaty hand lifting stuff with just that floaty hand that they couldn’t lift with _both_ of theirs.

A hundred pounds. Two hundred. Three hundred. He picked them up with that one hand like they were nothing.

And now the weight room was dead silent. And there was a crowd gathering. There were phones out.

“Yeah, I’m still not even really feeling that.” Shiro gently set a bar loaded with four hundred pounds down and glanced around him. “They’re, uh... staring at me,” he whispered to Adam, and he could feel his face turning a little red.

“Do you want to stop?” Adam asked him, and he looked down at the bar.

“I think let’s just put as much on it as we can fit and call it a day? Unless you want me to bench _you..._ ”

“Hmm.” Adam grinned. “Yeah, okay, let’s try that. And next time, I get to bench _you._ Hey, Cadet? I’m gonna borrow these real quick if that’s okay--”

“My dude--I mean-- _sir_ \--” that cadet whimpered helplessly as Adam made off with all the plates he could carry. Which wasn’t a lot; his robot arm itself might be pretty strong but it was still a little tender, and since his arm was physically attached to him, he was kind of limited by what the rest of him could carry. Still, he grabbed enough in one trip to make the poor cadet do a double-take.

“I’ll bring them back in a minute,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s for science.”

They put as many plates on the bar as they could fit on it. It looked cartoonishly overloaded by the time they were done. And Shiro was starting to wonder exactly how much weight that bar was actually rated for, and how far over the limit they were.

“All right,” Adam said, stepping back and dusting off his hands, “you’ve got… um… let’s see, if the big ones are--”

“Bruh.” One of the serious lifters did a quick count. “That’s like… half a ton.”

Half a ton of weight on that bar. Five hundred on each end. _Shit._ Why did Shiro suddenly have a _really_ bad feeling about this? “Guys,” he said, “you might all want to step back.” He eyed the bar again. Was it just his imagination, or did it suddenly look… really, _really_ flimsy somehow?

Shiro reached down and grabbed the middle of the bar. He pulled. Slowly. Carefully. The weight didn’t move.

He pulled a little harder. It still didn’t move. The bar bowed upwards.

“Uh…” Adam took another three giant steps backwards and so did everyone else. “I’m… suddenly having some serious doubts about whether or not this is safe.”

“Yeah… I think _I_ could probably lift this much but--” Shiro pulled. And pulled. The innermost plates came up off the floor, just an inch. Then another. “I’m not sure the _bar_ can--”

He pulled just a little more and right on cue there was a Godawful thick twanging snapping noise followed by something that sounded like someone upending a shipping container of loose cast iron skillets onto a parking lot, and Shiro yelped, flailed, and fell backwards onto his ass.

Four seconds of stunned silence, followed by a room full of gym bros going _absolutely fucking wild,_ followed by two gym employees who weren’t being paid _nearly_ enough to put up with any of this coming to investigate.

All followed by the look on Shiro’s face when he realized what had happened and that he was lying there with a half-ton pile of plates all around him, some of them still attached to their ends of the bar, some of them still lazily rolling around, and that oh-so-incriminating length of broken bar still clutched in his floaty robot hand.

“I, uh--I’m so sorry.” Shiro scrambled to his feet, turned bright red, and gestured vaguely with the length of broken bar. Adam turned away, hiding his face and wheezing with suppressed laughter. “I’ll pay for it?”

 

* * *

 

Well, _that_ was embarrassing. At least Shiro ended up not having to pay for the damage--not only did the gym bros who saw the whole thing go down offer to take up a collection on his behalf, the _manager_ came in, saw what happened, saw who was responsible, saw the video from at least three different gym bros’ phones, and then just asked him to _autograph the damn broken bar_ and let them mount it on the wall.

Still… Shiro figured that was enough property damage for one day and they should probably finish up and leave, and Adam didn’t argue with that.

Shiro finished his shower and came back out into the locker room to get dressed. Adam was already in his jeans and shirt, but he was standing there in his shower flipflops going through his bag like he was missing something.

“Lose something?” Shiro asked him, and he shook his head.

“Maybe,” Adam finally said without looking up. “I thought I got some foot powder but I guess not… can I borrow yours?”

“Uh…” Shiro opened up his locker, pulled out his bag, and went through it. “Yeah,” he said, holding the bottle out. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Adam replied, turning around to take it. But when he actually saw Shiro, he just sort of… froze in place. His eyes went wide. His jaw went slack.

And he looked.

And looked.

And _kept_ looking.

“You okay?” Shiro asked.

“Um,” Adam said. He tried to grab for the bottle. His hand just sort of slid off it and dropped limply to his side. “I, uh.” He cleared his throat.

“Adam?”

“I just. Um.“ Adam swallowed hard enough that Shiro could hear it. “Ohmy _god,”_ he said, in the tiniest, cutest little squeak.

And then Shiro noticed the color his face was turning, and where his eyes kept getting stuck, and… oh. Right. He… still didn’t have a shirt on, did he? He didn’t have anything on but shower flipflops and a towel around his waist, did he? And this would be the first time this version of Adam had seen… well, seen _that much_ of this version of him, wouldn’t it?

“So,” Shiro said, as casually as he could, “you were saying something about that look I was giving you at uniform issue…”

“I, uh…” Adam kept staring. His ears were _purple._ His glasses were fogging up and okay, that was probably because this _was_ after all a locker room and showers were happening, but the effect was just too precious. “You--you _definitely_ didn’t have an 8-pack on my side,” he finally stammered.

Shiro grinned and wiggled the thing of foot powder at him again. Adam took it, and it stayed in his hand, but he just stood frozen there for a minute like he’d forgotten what it was for. Then he cleared his throat and quickly turned around to do what he needed to do.

Shiro considered, just for a second, maybe taking a little longer to get dressed than he really needed to. Maybe even waiting until Adam inevitably turned around before he got rid of the towel. But in the end, he decided against it. Not the time, not the place, and they were taking this stuff slow, right?

But if Adam _did_ decide to roast him about the Uniform Issue Incident, at least he had a counterattack now.

 

* * *

 

At some point that evening, at least one of those gym bros uploaded their videos to some social media outlet or another where gym bros gathered. And all their lifting buddies shared them around. And naturally, since that was the gym on base those gym bros also shared those videos around the online Garrison hangouts. And in the time it had taken Shiro and Adam to go get some dinner and come back to Shiro’s room those videos had started, as the kids said these days, _doing numbers…_

On the one hand, it was fairly hilarious and, well, it wasn’t like Shiro’s face had never been on worldwide media.

On the other, Adam was in the background in a couple of those videos and if they really blew up, people who thought he was dead were going to see him and…

“I need to call my parents,” Adam finally said, dropping his head onto Shiro’s shoulder. “Right now.”

“Okay.” Shiro thought about that for a bit. “Maybe… let _me_ call them? Make sure they’re sitting down and all first?”

“That’s…” Adam nodded and let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. That’s a good idea.” He didn’t want to get up right away, though, and Shiro didn’t really blame him. So he wrapped his arm around Adam’s shoulders and held him tight for a minute.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said. “You know they’re going to be happy to see you.”

“I know, and I really want to see _them,_ I just--” Adam said, and his voice cracked a little. “Shit. I can’t--” He pulled back, shut his eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths. “I don’t want to just sit here and cry the whole time, dammit, I’m not going to do that to them,” he said, and Shiro knew better… but he also knew better than to dispute that, so he just gave Adam’s shoulders another big squeeze and let him go.

He took out his phone. “Ready?”

“...no,” Adam said, with a little nervous laugh. He cleared his throat and got up off the couch so he’d be out of frame for now. “Go ahead.”

Arizona and Alberta being in the same time zone made this a little easier, at least; they _could_ do this now while Adam was ready and they didn’t have to do math to figure out when everyone involved would be awake. It was still early enough that Adam’s folks would be home and still be up, maybe just on the tail end of dinner.

He gave Adam a nod, and Adam returned it.

He scrolled down to Adam’s parents’ number and hit “call,” then put his phone on speaker. It rang twice.

“Takashi!” Adam’s mom chirped. “Hon, how are you?”

“Hey, Judy.” Shiro relaxed a little. He couldn’t help it, Adam’s mom was one of those moms that just felt like… _everyone’s_ mom. “I’m good. You doing okay?”

“We’re getting along,” she said, and Shiro flinched a little because… shit. Right. They didn’t know yet. They still thought… _ugh._ “It’s good to hear from you. Hon, you know you can call us whenever you want, right? You know we still… even if it didn’t… you know we still love you.”

“I know.” Shiro glanced over at Adam. “It’s just been so crazy around here and…” He shook his head. “Judy... there’s something… um, is A.J. there? Can you call him in? I really need to talk to both of you.”

“Uh… sure, okay.” And then, muffled: “Honey! Come talk to Takashi?”

Even more muffled in the background: “Okay.” There were some shuffling noises. “Hey,” Adam’s dad said, and it never ceased to amaze Shiro how that man could make a single-syllable greeting sound the way a big warm hug felt. “How’s it going?”

“Well…” Shiro cleared his throat. “Listen, there’s… there’s something you need to know and you’re not going to believe me if I just tell you so… we need to do this on video. Is that okay?”

“Takashi, hon… what happened?” Oh God, there it was, Concerned Mom Voice.

Shiro glanced over at Adam. He was holding it together, but just barely. They needed to take this to video _now_ or... “I really need to just show you.” Shiro let out a breath. “And you should probably both sit down.”

There was a long pause, and some more shuffling noises. “Okay.”

He set the phone on its stand and sent the video call request, and they accepted it.

“Oh--” Adam’s mom gasped, and then she laughed. “Hon, I am _never_ going to get over your hair.” His dad laughed at that too.

“Or your _arm,”_ he said, and Adam’s mom elbowed him in the ribs.

“Hush! That’s _rude!”_

Adam’s dad shrugged. “Well, it’s _cool.”_

Much like Keith, Adam definitely favored his mom. She had the same gray eyes and the same sharp little nose. She wore a sweatshirt with a graphic of a cat playing a fiddle on it, and Adam’s dad sat next to her in a faded blue and black flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his long white-streaked ponytail trailing down over his shoulder.

Adam was very carefully not looking anywhere near Shiro’s phone, and Shiro could see his shoulders trembling.

“Okay, now.” Adam’s mom said softly. “What happened?”

Shiro didn’t answer that. Not verbally.

Instead, he just held out his hand. After a moment to gather his courage, Adam came over and took it and sat down next to him.

_“Oh--!”_

Adam’s mom was the first to realize what was happening. Both her hands flew up to her mouth and her eyes went wide. _“Adam!?_ Oh, _honey--_ ”

Adam’s dad was usually pretty stoic (which just gave the wicked sense of humor Adam _clearly_ got from him that much more punch), but even he couldn’t quite keep the shock and joy off his face. He reached over and wrapped an arm around Adam’s mom.

Adam swallowed hard and opened his mouth. Nothing came out of it. He shook his head and tried again. “Hey,” was all he could manage before he broke down.

“Okay,” Shiro whispered, with a gentle little laugh, “it’s okay, baby.” He wrapped his arm around Adam and kissed his forehead, and Adam buried his face in his shoulder. “So, uh… now you see why I didn’t want to just, um…”

Adam’s mom laughed through her tears, and his dad snuggled her close. “... _how!?”_ his dad finally asked. “They told us you got shot down, how did you--”

“It’s a really long and really… _really_ wild story,” Shiro said with a sheepish laugh, “and I’m pretty sure most of it is classified.”

After a while Adam sat up again, though neither he nor his parents could get through more than two or three words at a time for most of the call, and there were a few minutes where all three of them just sat there crying, and Shiro damn near joined them on that.

“So,” Adam’s dad finally said after they all settled down again _._ “Wedding’s back on, huh?”

 

* * *

 

With the remainder of the ice thus broken, they were able to actually _talk_ a little. Of course Adam’s dad was the first to notice Adam’s new arm, and he asked if it had a bottle opener. Which earned him another elbow from Adam’s mom.

The Garrison had sent them all the stuff that’d been in Adam’s quarters, they said, did they want him to ship it back down there?

No, Adam said, and added that when his _superior officer_ cleared him to fly again--and here he shot a _very_ pointed look at Shiro, who coughed and looked away and pretended not to hear--he’d just come visit and pick it up, no point in them paying for shipping or anything.

But they insisted on at least putting together a care package of snacks and stuff, and Adam had no problem with that. Shiro sure didn’t argue, because Adam’s parents always went out of their way to hit up the local Japanese grocery store and put some stuff in their care packages for _him_ too.

After they hung up, Adam just sort of collapsed onto Shiro’s shoulder for a while.

“You okay?” Shiro asked, reaching up to pet his hair back, and he nodded.

“Yeah. Just… tired. Good tired, though. I feel a lot better.” He snuggled into Shiro’s shoulder and let out a deep sigh. “They really like you, don’t they?”

“Yeah. They always did. It’s really nice.”

Adam was quiet for a while. Shiro could feel him open his mouth a couple of times, like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure he should. “Are yours… still around?”

“Yeah,” Shiro said. “I called them after the invasion, after everything settled down. I’m glad they’re okay. They’re glad I’m okay.” He shrugged. “Other than that they still don’t have much to say to me.”

“Shit.” Adam shook his head. “I was hoping they were different on this side.”

Shiro looked down, saw Adam looking up at him, and cuddled him close. “Don’t worry about it. It’s _their_ problem. Not yours.”

Adam wrapped his arm around Shiro’s waist and huffed out a warm breath into his shoulder. “Too late. I’m worried about it.”

_"Don’t.”_ Shiro laughed. “Really. Don’t. Your parents were always great.” He kissed Adam’s forehead. “Besides, it’s not like I don’t have a family here.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning, a few minutes into Adam’s daily visit with Black, he got a text from Takashi:

_Got the training deck booked from 1500-1630 if you want to come school some Paladins :)_

Adam grinned. _Nice,_ he sent back.

_There WILL be ground rules tho. Not going to let you hurt yourself._

_You should be more worried about THEM,_ Adam sent.

Black poked his mind gently. It was curious.

“Going to go do some sparring with the Paladins later,” he told it. “It’s gonna be fun.”

Black was strangely quiet at that.

“What?”

The other four Lions. The Castle. Then the Lions from this reality. Their Paladins.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I know. I’ve been… I’ve been trying not to overthink it. Like I said. Them being okay here doesn’t change what happened there, but they’re okay here. That’s what I’m trying to focus on now. It doesn’t mean I’m going to forget what happened to them on our side.”

A gentle push. Like Black was…

Like Black was pushing him away.

“What!? Black, no! Why? I--are you mad at me?”

A little burst of unpleasant-sounding static-- _no._ Black tried again. The Lions in this reality, their Paladins, and that gentle push towards them and away from Black.

“...you want me to--okay. No.” Adam shook his head. _“No._ That’s _not happening._ ”

A push away. Pleading.

_“Stop that!”_ Adam clamped both hands down on the control sticks, tears stinging in his eyes. “Stop it! I’m not going to give up on you!”

Pushing him away. Black, with its barrier up.

“Oh, you think the barrier’s going to stop me? Well, _sorry not sorry_ but you know what, I am _beyond done_ letting the people and--and the _sentient robot lions_ I love talk me into leaving them! I will _sit right outside the goddamn thing and keep right on talking to you until you let me back in!_ I will _never_ give up on you!”

Silence for a while. Then something that felt like a sigh. That little soothing noise that meant _sorry._

“It’s okay.” Adam leaned his head back against the back of the pilot seat. “I know you’re hurting, just… don’t do that to me. Please don’t ever do that to me.”

Adam sat there in silence for a long time, and so did Black.

“I won’t give up on you,” Adam finally whispered. “I’ll _never_ give up on you. Please don’t give up on me.”

 

* * *

 

After that, Adam _needed_ to do something constructive, so he headed for the sim bay.

The MFE simulators were booked solid today, though--no chance of him getting in for hours, if at all. Damn.

But he figured he’d stick around anyway, just in case they got a break and could squeeze him in for a quick mission here and there. And he could offer subtle (or not-so-subtle, as the situation warranted) hints when the cadets got stuck. Which some of them did.

“Psst. _Adam.”_

Adam grinned a little, because he knew that voice, and he’d kind of been wondering when he was going to run into her. But when he turned to say hi, Veronica just waved him over like she thought they were about to get up to some trouble--and if this version of her was anything like the one Adam knew, they probably were. “Nice to see you too, Ronnie.”

“No time for catch-up. The MFE cadets are going up for training flights in twenty minutes. You wanna fly the real deal or not?”

Adam chewed on his lower lip and thought about that. Yes. Oh yes, he wanted to fly the real deal, all right. He’d promised Takashi he would stay on the ground until he got his arm back. And he had his arm back. But… “My _superior officer_ has not cleared me to fly,” he told her, leaning on that _superior officer_ just hard enough to get the point across. “But… the MFE-Ares _does_ have a back seat, doesn’t it?”

Veronica’s eyes twinkled. “It _does.”_

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he finally said, “you and I both know I’m going to be in the doghouse when he finds out about this, but… he didn’t say _anything_ about sitting in the back seat and letting someone else do the flying. Are we going to have time to get me a flight suit, though?”

“Already got you one. Yes, with your new-and-improved measurements.” Veronica just beamed at him. _“Walk with me.”_

 

* * *

 

That “J. Griffin” sure was the same kid that used to pick on Keith--and apparently, he was the de facto leader of the MFE squadron.

And he was somewhat less than excited about the prospect of a senior officer getting trained on the MFE fighters. He assured Adam that as happy as they were to see him back at the Garrison, they didn’t need adult supervision. They were just fine without him, thank you very much _Commander_.

Which kind of threw Adam because literally _nobody_ had said anything to anyone, least of all _him,_ about him being “adult supervision” for the MFE squadron. Adam had actually assumed that if (God forbid) Black decided it was done flying and he ended up behind the stick of an MFE full-time, it would be with a whole new squadron but if it rankled this guy _that much_ to think he’d been sent to _babysit_ …

“I think I’d like to ride with Cadet Griffin,” Adam said, and the mortified look on Griffin’s face warmed his heart and nourished his soul. He wondered if he still had that “Cadet Tears” mug in storage somewhere, and if he should find it and dust it off.

 

* * *

 

Yes, Adam thought five minutes after Griffin made the grievous error of offering to let him have the stick for a little while, he was _definitely_ going to need that mug again.

He was still worried about Black, but he felt much better after they landed.

 

* * *

 

The Paladins clearly had no idea what was going on. They’d been instructed to show up at the training deck with armor and bayards, and when they got there they found Adam in full armor. Next to him: a Gladiator robot holding a watermelon in its hands.

“Oookay,” Hunk finally said, “you know the rules, right, Adam? If we’re gonna smash that, we gotta--”

“We’re gonna eat it, yeah.” Adam grinned. “But before we get started I just wanted you guys to know why I won’t be going full contact with you.”

“Full contact--” Lance got it, and he grinned. “Oh, _this_ is gonna be fun.”

“It’s gonna be fun for _me,_ at least.” Adam grinned back and shrugged. “Lance? Did I ever have a coffee mug on my desk on this side? One that said ‘Cadet Tears’ on it?”

“Yeah,” Lance said--and then he stopped grinning. “Oh _shit,”_ he groaned. _“We’re_ cadets!” and the rest of the Paladins laughed.

“Now…” Six feet of quarterstaff-shaped bayard appeared in Adam’s hands. He gave the watermelon a friendly pat. “Imagine this is your skull,” he said. He stepped back, readied his bayard, and smacked the watermelon with it.

It was a short, quick strike. It didn’t _look_ like he’d hit it all that hard, certainly didn’t look like he’d even put that much energy into it. But the watermelon still all but disintegrated under the end of Adam’s bayard, and he took a moment to relish the horrified looks on the Paladins’ faces as the words _imagine this is your skull_ and the sight of that bashed-open watermelon sank in. Except Allura. She just nodded and smiled. She’d fought with a quarterstaff on Adam’s side, hadn’t she? Maybe she had some experience with one on this side too.

“So. If you slip up and let me give you a little love tap on the noggin like so--” Adam went down the line, dispensing ever-so-gentle taps on helmets that made Lance roll his eyes and Allura and Pidge laugh, “you’re out, grab a chunk of melon and enjoy the rest of the show. Question, Keith?”

“Yeah,” Keith said. “Does that mean _we_ have to hold back too?”

Adam grinned. “Absolutely _not._ In fact, I _want_ you to go all out.” He held up a hand and rolled his eyes. “Now our _superior officer--”_ Adam shot a withering glare up at the walkway over the training deck, where Takashi stood in his combat suit watching all of this, “has _insisted_ that you go one at a time and not all come at me at once if you’re going to do that.” He shrugged. “Yes, Pidge?”

“You said something about stun pads on your bayard,” she said, and Adam nodded.

“That’s right.” He pointed at the glowing purple pads on the ends of his staff. “If I were to touch you with one of these anywhere that isn’t covered by your actual armor, you would be on the floor crying before you knew what hit you. But don’t worry about them, I’m turning them off… _this time.”_ The glowing pads turned dull black. “So. Who wants to go first?”

“Yeah. Okay.” Hunk stepped forward. “I’ll take one for the team.” He called his bayard, and--

“Hunk, _no!”_ Takashi yelled down at them. “No guns! That means you too, Lance!”

“Oh, _what?”_ Adam yelled back up at him. “Come on! Let ‘em test my shield!”

“Adam, _NO!”_

Adam rolled his eyes. “He never lets me have any fun,” he sighed. “You can’t do a melee weapon with yours?”

“Y’know…” Hunk looked down at his now-deactivated bayard and shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve ever tried?”

“Okay. We’ll have to work on that sometime. You want to go grab a training weapon for now?”

“Nah,” Hunk said, squaring up with a grin. “I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” Adam and dropped back into a ready stance. “Come on, then.”

Fighting Hunk was actually kind of refreshing. No tricks, no sneaky tactics--with him, what you saw was what you got. Not that fighting him was going to be easy. Even if he was on the slow side and didn’t have a bayard to worry about at the moment, Hunk hit like a freight train and not only that--he was _smart_. Not just fighting-smart--he was an engineer, he knew all about the laws of physics and how they might come into play in any situation, including this one. If Adam moved half a second too early, Hunk would figure out what he was up to and change up his attack to counter it. Half a second too late and he’d be eating training deck floor for lunch. But if this version of Hunk was anything like the one Adam knew, he’d prefer to keep his feet on the ground, and Adam probably wouldn’t have to worry about him hitting the jetpack.

At the last possible second, Adam ducked and swung low and slow, not intending to actually hit, just to get his bayard between Hunk’s feet. Hunk was ready for the leading end. He dodged it easily, just as Adam was expecting him to. But it was that _trailing_ end Hunk really needed to worry about. He might have _seen_ it coming, but he was just too big and gravity and inertia just wouldn’t let him get his feet clear again that quickly and sure enough, he didn’t even fire his jetpack. Down he went, and Adam gave him a gentle tap on the helmet on the way down.

“Friendly reminder,” Adam said, “a quarterstaff has two ends and they both work.” He offered Hunk a hand up, and Hunk took it. “Good job. Who’s next?”

Pidge’s bayard was different from Matt’s but other than that, she fought a lot like her brother. She was smaller and faster and a hell of a lot more agile, though, and worse--she never seemed to run out of energy. Oh, and she was _also_ an engineer, with all that entailed. And her bayard was packing a nasty little surprise that actually caught Adam a little off guard the first time she sprung it on him-- _that_ must have been where she got the idea for that grapple hand thing. So not only was she small, fast, and smart, she had range too. Great.

Later, Adam would freely admit the shot he got in was pure luck, he swung at her feet just to check her reaction time. She ended up catching her foot under Adam’s bayard and falling on her face, and Adam rolled with it. He’d have to go back later and really put some serious analysis into that fight, though. He didn’t like winning with a lucky shot. Luck tended to run out sooner or later.

Keith fought like Thace, which wasn’t a surprise--they were both Blades, after all, they would have had the same kind of training. Keith was faster, but Adam had fought Thace to a stalemate enough times that a smaller, lighter, less experienced opponent using the same tactics should have been manageable. But then Lance joined in.

“Hey!” Adam heard Takashi yell from the walkway over the deck. “Come on, Lance! _One at a time!”_

The sight of Lance with a sword-shaped red bayard froze Adam in place for a second, and Keith picked up on it--he held out a hand in front of Lance and shook his head, and Lance lowered his bayard and took half a step back.

“You okay, Adam?” Keith asked.

There were two things about this that were different enough to relax him once he noticed them. One, the sword itself. It was _nothing_ like Keith’s. Longer. Heavier towards the hilt. Looked vaguely Altean in design. Lance probably had the upper body strength to wield it one-handed for a second here and there if he had to, but most likely he was generally going to need both hands on it. _No shield for you, then._ Also, it was clear right away that this version of Lance hadn’t put in _nearly_ the same kind of training deck time with it as the one from his side. His stance wasn’t nearly as solid, and Adam didn’t have much experience with this kind of sword but he didn’t think the grip Lance had on it was quite right.

And two… the grin. Yeah. He was having fun with this. And that was great. Adam was genuinely relieved to see it. It also meant he wasn’t taking this _nearly_ as seriously as the Lance he knew.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Adam replied, shaking his head to clear it. “It’s fine,” he said again, this time yelling up at Takashi. “They’re being smart. They know they can’t take me one-on-one, this _almost_ makes it a fair fight.”

“Are we really gonna take that from the guy that brought a _stick_ to a sword fight?” Lance spluttered.

“Oh _hell_ no,” Keith laughed.

Adam made a mental note to ask Takashi later if they were… you know… _together._ They sure fought like it. They watched each others’ blind spots, took turns covering so the other could attack all-out, and did they really think Adam didn’t notice all that nonverbal communication between them? Did they think he didn’t notice them gradually trying to put more space between themselves and trap _him_ in the middle?

Of course they’d try to catch him in a pincer attack. Against one swordsman, or even two of them in front of him, Adam had a pretty significant range advantage. Against one swordsman on each side, that range advantage evaporated--that would keep _both_ ends of the staff busy. He could switch to sword and shield, he thought--hold Keith off with the shield while he dealt with the less experienced swordsman.

Or he could take a calculated risk, let Lance get behind him, let Lance think all his attention was on Keith, wait for Lance to drop his guard because he thought he’d pulled a fast one on Adam and just _had_ to gloat for one precious second…

And then remind him that a quarterstaff has two ends, they both work, and they work just as well going backwards.

Adam made sure to aim a little higher and stop a little shorter than he would have if he were fighting someone who really needed to go down; as it was, the end of his bayard caught Lance square in the stomach, just below the bottom edge of his chestplate, and hard enough to knock the wind out of him. If the stun pads had been hot, he would have been twitching on the floor. As it was, he whoofed out a breath and doubled over, and Adam brought the end of his bayard up to boop him on the forehead. “You okay, Lance?”

Lance nodded. “Yep,” he wheezed. He straightened up, rubbing his stomach. “Yeah. _Respect the stick._ Lesson learned.”

Adam grinned and clapped him on the back. “Okay. Walk it off. Go get your watermelon, you earned it.”

With Lance out of the picture, Adam decided to change it up a little. He switched to the sword and called up his new shield for the first time.

It was amazing. It was effortless and painless and Keith’s bayard just bounced right off it. It was also _bigger._ And he had a feeling that he was only seeing a fraction of its potential right now. It was Altean tech, after all, and that shit _evolved._

“You can’t stay behind that shield forever,” Keith taunted, and Adam laughed.

“Don’t have to,” he said. “How’s that arm holding up, kiddo?”

Keith switched hands, just to show Adam he could. “Holding up fine,” he panted. He tried to go low. It wasn’t hard for Adam to block him. “How about yours, old-timer?”

“Okay, first? I’m not _that_ much older than you are and second...” Adam’s grin turned just the slightest bit wicked, and he wiggled the fingers of his left hand. _“This_ one doesn’t get tired, and the other one’s getting a break.”

Adam had never quite been able to beat Thace. Not with the sword, not with the staff. He’d come close to it a few times, and more often their sparring matches only ended when neither one of them had enough energy left to swing a bayard. But Thace had about a foot and a half and at least a hundred solid pounds on Keith. And Keith was getting tired. He was ambidextrous, and that would help him a little, but in the end both of his arms were flesh and blood and there was only so much gas in the tank.

Adam might have lied a little about his arm not getting tired. It did, and he was starting to feel a little bit of a drain from having the shield up this long. He wasn’t in danger of running out of juice anytime _really_ soon and it would charge back up almost instantly once he dropped the shield, he knew that, but it wouldn’t be long anyway. Keith was tired, and sooner or later he was going to get sloppy.

And then he did. Keith swung high and wild; Adam swatted Keith’s bayard away with the shield and gently smacked Keith upside the helmet with the flat of his own.

Allura was a trickier puzzle to solve than Adam expected. He had a pretty significant height advantage but he knew she could wipe that out and then some if she really wanted to. She probably wouldn’t, because she knew staying her regular size made it so easy to forget how strong she was. Plus she hadn’t had a bayard on Adam’s side and he wasn’t expecting the form it took. He switched back to the staff; he figured that was what she’d pull as well. The whip caught him off-guard long enough for her to get an attack in. He dove out of the way and rolled, almost too late, and she struck again almost before he could recover--that thing was lightning fast, and it had _range._ It moved almost like it was alive, like it was seeking him out.

How the hell was he going to turn _that_ against her?

She lashed out again and this time she didn’t aim for him--she caught his bayard, more than enough of the whip wrapping itself around it to give her a solid grip on it.

The staff definitely wasn’t the best choice against a whip, but the sword and shield wouldn’t have been much better--he had a feeling his blade wouldn’t work on an energy whip and he’d just end up with it getting snatched out of his hand no matter how many times he tried to call it back, and as for the shield… the whip could just snap around it and catch him in the face, by the arm, whatever.

All right, he could analyze the situation until the cows came home but that wasn’t going to help him now. He’d gotten into this pickle, and he needed a way out of it fast.

Allura gave the whip a yank and Adam would have gone sprawling if he hadn’t had most of his weight on his trailing foot--hell, he almost went sprawling anyway. As it was, no amount of digging his heels in could keep her from dragging him closer. If she got him on the floor or dragged him into grappling range he was _done--_ she was flexible, and she was much, _much_ stronger than he was _._ She pulled again, dragging Adam another foot or so closer still. And then he knew _exactly_ what to do.

He waited for Allura to try and reel him in again. He even put up a little token resistance, tugging back just to bait her into it.

She took the bait and flashed him a cute little grin.

He flashed her one right back… and let go of his bayard.

Shame he didn’t have much time to enjoy her reaction when all the resistance she was pulling against just up and vanished and six feet of quarterstaff-shaped bayard came flying right at her face. Adam fired his jetpack and jumped straight up, calling his bayard back to his hands just before it hit her, just as he stalled at the peak of his jump. And on the way down, he ever so gently tapped the top of Allura’s helmet with the end of his staff.

She stuck out her lower lip. “Oh, _quiznak.”_

Adam put his bayard away and shucked off his helmet. “And that’s that about that. Hey, you _all_ did pretty good, I’m impressed.” He strolled over to the Gladiator robot-turned-watermelon server and picked up a chunk. “So. Any questions, class?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a question,” came Takashi’s voice from behind him. “Do _I_ get a turn?”

Oh _shit._

“I guess I could squeeze you in,” Adam replied. He ate his watermelon, chucked the rind in the trash, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, eyes locked on Takashi’s the whole time as he strolled back out onto the training deck and ran down a quick mental inventory of Takashi’s strengths and weaknesses, looking for something, _anything,_ to turn against him.

He donned his helmet and called his bayard. The staff this time.

Takashi had superhuman strength in that arm. And range. There were a lot of unknowns that went along with that arm, too. He was surprisingly agile for his size. He had _experience._ He knew Adam. Better than anyone.

“Avenge us, Shiro!” Hunk yelled, and the rest of the Paladins cracked up.

Adam had a slight height advantage but not enough of one to make much of a difference. He had a jetpack, Takashi didn’t. He had a shield and a bayard. Takashi had neither, but again--that arm was a much bigger question mark than Adam liked.

How to deal with him? The old death from above, again? No, Takashi had just watched him pull that one with Allura, he’d be ready for it. Bait, switch, and trip, like he’d done with Hunk? Nope, he’d seen that too. He was smart, and he was an absolutely _brilliant_ strategist. He’d been watching the whole time. Watching him deal with every single one of the Paladins’ attacks. Watching and _learning._

_Shit._

This time, Adam thought he actually might have to try turtling behind his shield until Takashi got tired or he figured something out--and dammit, Takashi had just watched him pull _that_ one with Keith.

“How’s your arm feeling?” Takashi asked, circling him slowly.

“Getting a little sore,” he lied, keeping Takashi in front of him. “More than enough left in it to hand you your ass, though.”

Takashi would hold back. Whether he meant to or not, he’d hold back. And later, Adam would have to apologize for weaponizing his concern but, well… Takashi was the one that wanted to spar with him, he knew what he was in for. Now… what _else_ could he weaponize?

Hmm. A little risky--after all, they were taking this slow, and also the Paladins were watching, but...

“So,” Adam said, like they were sitting on the couch watching TV, not at all like they were circling each other in the middle of the training deck with Takashi holding that floating hand out in front of him and Adam twirling six feet of quarterstaff-shaped bayard just because he could and five wide-eyed Paladins on the sidelines munching on watermelon chunks like they were watching some kind of wild sporting event (which, Adam guessed, they kind of were), “you never told me what _your_ bayard looked like.” He wiggled an eyebrow. “C’mon. _I showed you mine.”_

Takashi laughed and shrugged. “Never used it.” He wiggled his fingers. “Got along fine without it, mostly.”

“You sure you don’t want to go pick up a weapon?”

Takashi shook his head and _oh,_ Adam thought, _poor baby, he actually thinks he’s going to win._ “Don’t need it. I can handle you just fine.”

“Really?” Adam beamed at him, all sweetness and light. “That’s funny, because I remember beating your ass with a staff even when you had a weapon. You really want to do this unarmed? No pun intended.”

Takashi lowered his voice, so the Paladins wouldn’t hear. “You look good in that armor, you know that?”

“Mmm.” _Shit._ He was doing it right back. Well, there was still a little room to escalate it without the Paladins catching on. Adam gave him a long, slow look up and down and lowered _his_ voice. “You look pretty good in that suit, too.”

“So... are we just going to stand here and flirt all day or are you going to do something?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Takashi just shook his head. Of course he was too smart to take that bait, Adam would have to make the first move.

Well, fine. Adam swung low-to-high, and Takashi barely had to move to block him.

That arm was _great_ for defense. Not being physically tethered to Takashi’s body meant it had an absolutely _ridiculous_ range of motion, and no matter where Adam tried to dispense a little love tap with one end or another of his staff, that arm was there to block it or grab it. And it was fast. Faster than Adam’s bayard, at least in this form--did he maybe need to go sword-and-shield this time? Or was he just flat-out _screwed?_

It’d been a long time since Adam had been able to spar with Takashi at all on his side, much less go all-out against him and even at his strongest, that version of Takashi had _never_ fought like this. Fuck, if _this_ was how he fought when he was holding back…

Yes, a quarterstaff had two equally effective ends, and yes, that trailing end could ruin your day if you weren’t paying attention. But Takashi _was_ paying attention. He gently cuffed Adam on the shoulder, ruffled his hair, patted him low enough on the back that Adam would later accuse him of going for his ass but high enough to offer plausible deniability against that charge. “Getting tired?” he asked, sneaking through Adam’s guard to ever-so-gently boop him on the nose.

“I can keep this up _all day_.” He lowered his voice again. “And all _night.”_

_“Mmm.”_ Takashi grabbed the end of Adam’s bayard and twisted _hard,_ breaking Adam’s grip on it for a split second. “Insert borderline inappropriate comment about grappling here…”

“If the Paladins weren’t watching,” Adam purred back, calling his bayard back to his hands and out of Takashi’s grip, _“I’d tell you what you could insert where.”_

That did it. Takashi flushed crimson and dropped his guard for one precious second.

And Adam deactivated his bayard, called up his shield, and hit the jetpack. Not up this time-- _forward._

Boy, this thing _was_ great for shield-bashing, wasn’t it? Of course Adam didn’t go full throttle with his jetpack, he didn’t want to _completely_ bulldoze Takashi, but the combination of catching him off guard and just plowing right into his midsection with an impenetrable force-field was more than enough to take this fight to the ground. Adam wasn’t the best grappler, but neither was Takashi, and Takashi was still trying to figure out what the hell just happened and why he was on the floor.

No point in trying to put any kind of submission hold on that right arm, but Adam could at least pin it to the floor with his left. From there, he hooked his foot under one of Takashi’s legs, reached down and grabbed his ankle before he could react, and got him in a neat but careful kneebar, pinning that right hand to the floor under his shoulder.

“Wanna tap out?” Adam asked him with a cheeky little grin.

“Nah,” Takashi replied with an equally cheeky grin.

Adam applied a little more pressure--not much, the last thing he wanted to do was actually screw Takashi’s knee up--just enough to get the point across. “You better tap,” he warned.

But then he realized, far too late, that he was so focused on trying to keep Takashi’s right hand out of the game that he didn’t notice what the left was doing.

There was a fundamental design flaw in the Paladin armor, Adam had always thought. Sure, it protected most of the wearer’s chest and the important squishy bits therein (and, well, he didn’t know about Pidge or Allura but there was some well-concealed groin protection in the undersuit in _his,_ at least), but it left pretty much everything between the bottom pair of ribs and the thighs pretty open. Lots of squishy bits in there. Squishy… and _ticklish._

And Takashi knew where _all_ of his squishy and ticklish bits were, didn’t he? Like that one just under his rib cage. Adam barely saw Takashi’s free hand going for that spot, and by the time he noticed it was too late to do anything about it.

To his dying day, Adam would deny that such a noise could _ever_ come out of his mouth, at that volume. But when Takashi’s fingers dug into that spot _someone_ sure did shriek about it. And worse, when the tickle response took over and left Adam curled into a hysterically laughing ball around Takashi’s left hand… he had to let go of Takashi’s leg and he left his other side wide open and worse, he took his attention off that _right_ hand again…

_“Stop!”_ Adam wailed, howling laughter and swatting at Takashi’s hands, tears rolling down his face, “T-Takashi! _STOP IT!”_

Takashi grinned and clawed at the ticklish spots again. And now the _Paladins_ were laughing--no, they were _howling,_ like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Maybe it was.

“Tap out,” Takashi said, and dug his fingers in one more time.

Adam was going to make Takashi pay for this someday. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know when. But _someday_ there would be vengeance.

Today, Adam just wheezed and laughed and cried and slapped his hand on the floor. Takashi let him go, hopped to his feet, and offered Adam a hand up, and Adam took it.

“That wasn’t very nice of you,” Takashi whispered into his ear, “teasing me like that.” The words, combined with the heat of Takashi’s breath and the smile he could feel against his ear, sent all kinds of borderline inappropriate thoughts through Adam’s head. And made him more than a little grateful for that well-concealed cup in his undersuit, but never mind that.  “All right, guys. Class dismissed.” He grabbed Adam’s hand. “And as for _you..._ we need to talk about a little thing you did today. Let’s go for a walk.”

Ah, shit. That was not the tone Takashi would be using if he just wanted to talk some more about all things _borderline inappropriate._ No, that was the tone Adam would have expected him to use if he’d, say, reviewed the debrief logs for the day and just happened to see that he’d found a tiny little loophole around that sticky little issue of not actually being cleared to fly yet.

“All right,” Adam sighed. “I know what this is about.”

“I’m not real sure you do.” Takashi squeezed his hand. “I’m fine with you sitting in the back seat on a training flight. And yeah, you did only promise me you’d stay on the ground until you had your arm back, and… well…” He sat down on a bench and gently pulled Adam down to sit next to him. “You know I’m scared, right? You know _why,_ right?”

“Takashi--”

“Just let me finish, okay?” He squeezed Adam’s hand again. “I get it. You’re so used to not being able to catch your breath between shit-vs.-fan events that the idea of you being able to just sit on the sidelines now and then is just… _alien_ to you. I told you, you can have all the time you need to recover, and you’re still--I’m just--playing around on the training deck with the Paladins is one thing, but _flying_ is--I’m just afraid you’re pushing yourself too hard, too soon.” He drew a deep breath and let it out in a shaky sigh. “Look. I saw your sim scores. And I saw the flight record from you sitting backseat with Griffin, and I really hope you don’t think I didn’t see that particular five minutes, _you know exactly what five minutes I’m talking about._ So since I know I can’t keep you on the ground, I’m going to clear you _for training flights only_.”

_"Training_ flights?” Adam threw up his hands. “Come on! What happens if the sh--”

"If the shit hits the fan, you’re going to let someone else handle it until I’m sure I can trust you to know your limits.”

“I _do_ know my limits!” Takashi tried to say something, tried to lay a hand on his shoulder, and he shook it off. “Obviously I know them better than _you_ do! I told you, I can’t just sit around and do nothing!”

“And training is _something._ Look, I know you think you’re-- _”_

_“It’s not enough!”_ Adam snapped. “I can fly. I can _fight._ I _need_ this, okay? If we’re at war then I _need_ to get back out and fight, and you won’t even let me have _that!”_

Takashi recoiled like Adam had slapped him. “Are you even hearing what you’re saying right now!?” His voice was gentle, but there was fear in his eyes, bordering on panic. “The day before yesterday, you spent four hours on an operating table getting your arm put back on. A little over a week ago you almost _died._ And that’s just the physical stuff, that’s not even getting into the panic attacks and nightmares and shit--and now you’re getting upset with me because I won’t let you fly combat missions a week after you almost literally fucking _died_ escaping from the Hell Timeline? Adam, please, _listen to yourself!”_

Adam opened his mouth to argue that point further but he looked out onto the training deck, and what he saw there made his blood run cold.

Lance was still there.

With the sword. Fighting a Gladiator robot. And just for a second Adam felt the panic rising in his chest, bringing along with it an overpowering urge to run out there and grab Lance by the shoulders and tell him to stop, please, just _stop,_ he didn’t have to do this to himself, he…

He didn’t have to...

...oh.

Oh.

_Fuck._

“Adam?” Takashi laid a hand on his back, and this time Adam let him. “What’s--” He followed Adam’s gaze, watched Lance for a while...and nodded. “He’s okay,” Takashi murmured, pulling Adam closer. “He’s okay. Look.”

The robot was motionless now, paused in mid-swing of its weapon. Allura ran out, pointing and gesturing and trying her best to show Lance how to properly hold that sword but he couldn’t concentrate on that, judging by the color his face turned when she grabbed his hands and feet and hips to physically adjust his stance and grip. He said something, Adam couldn’t make it out this far away but it must have been ridiculous, because Allura laughed and then gently cuffed him on the back of the head and scolded him for goofing off. Which just set _Lance_ off laughing.

Adam sat there silently for a while, with his head on Takashi’s shoulder, watching them.

_“Now_ do you get why I’m so worried about you?” Takashi finally asked him, very softly, and he nodded.

“What happens when Black decides to wake up?” Adam asked him.

“If your Lion thinks you’re ready to fly, I’m not going to argue with it. I just need you to--I need you to be careful. Please.” Takashi wrapped both arms around him and held him tight. “I know you’re one of the best pilots we’ve got, if not _the_ best, okay? I _know_ that. And that’s why I’m asking you to be careful. We need you. _I_ need you. _I can’t lose you again.”_

Adam shut his eyes and snuggled into Takashi’s shoulder, and both his arms came up to wrap around his waist. “Okay,” he finally said.

They sat there like that for a while, watching Allura show Lance how his sword worked.

“Should we, uh…” Adam cleared his throat. “Should we maybe do something about the watermelon?”

“The Paladins pretty much took care of it for us,” Takashi said, and Adam shook his head.

“I mean the part on the floor.”

“Nah.” Takashi gave him a squeeze. “The cleanup drone’ll get it in a few minutes.”

 

* * *

 

The Paladin was perhaps not truly _happy,_ not yet. But he was alive and safe, and he was keeping himself occupied, and he was spending time with people he cared about. And that was good. The more time he spent doing that, the easier it would be for him to finally move on.

Without Black.

Because he had to. Sooner or later, he would see that he _had to._ Black tried to tell him the last time he came to visit, but he wasn’t ready to hear it. That was understandable. Sometimes the truth hurt. But someday soon, he would have to accept the fact that Black was done. It was finished. It would never fly agai--

The Lions didn’t communicate with their Paladins in words. They didn’t communicate with each other in words, either.

The impact of a giant paw going upside Black’s head required no words. Of course the other Black hadn’t actually physically hit it. It hadn’t moved. But Black felt it all the same, heard the impact ring in its head all the same.

It was the thought that counted.

Black could feel its counterpart staring at it. It didn’t look up. It didn’t need to. It didn’t _want_ to. It sent back a series of images: its Lions and their Paladins. Its Castle. Its family. Its home. Its _universe._

The Paladin had cut off his own arm to save Black, and for what?

It had failed.

It had _one mission--_ to defend its universe--and it had failed. Without the rest of its Lions, it had no purpose. Without a Voltron to lead, it was useless. The sooner the Paladin realized that and moved on, the better off he’d be. The better off they’d _all_ be.

An unpleasant-sounding burst of static from its counterpart: _no._

Black ignored it. It wanted to be left alone.

That static from its counterpart again, stronger.

Black tried to slam an imaginary door shut in its counterpart’s face, and its counterpart shoved a paw into it to keep it open.

Its counterpart sent a series of images: _these_ Lions and their Paladins. Black’s Paladin, making a point of coming to visit first thing every morning (except _that_ one, and even then he’d still _talked_ to Black, hadn’t he?). And a soundbite from the Paladin’s memory. Something his husband had said to him.

_It’s not like I don’t have a family here._

Black ignored that too. Or at least it did its best to give the impression that it ignored that too.

Its counterpart withdrew its paw from the imaginary door, and the purr it sent on the way out said it knew perfectly well its message had hit home.

And just for a microtick, Black almost changed its mind, almost _did_ wake up just so it could slap that smug attitude out of its counterpart’s head on the physical plane.

 

* * *

 

_Something’s wrong with Black,_ came the text early the next morning. _It’s letting me in but it won’t talk to me._

Shiro sat down and tried his damndest to come up with something to say that wouldn’t come off as handwaving and also wouldn’t come off as panicked, because… that wasn’t normal. It wasn’t normal for a Lion to let its Paladin in but to just… not respond to them.

_Does it feel like an actual malfunction or…?_ he finally sent back.

A long pause. _Hang on_

A longer pause. _No malfunction, it feels fine. Structural, mechanical, power level, everything feels fine. Feels like it’s… busy?_

_WTF?_ Shiro sent back.

_IDK. Like how those rly old computers were if u had too much shit open? How they looked frozen but u could still see the drive light going?_

Huh. That wasn’t an issue Shiro had ever run into with his and Keith’s Lion. In his experience, if a Lion didn’t want to talk to you, it just shut down and gave you _nothing,_ not even a feel for its status. It certainly didn’t give you the feeling that it was processing anything.

Something else was going on here. _Did it say anything weird to you yesterday? or before?_

_It was acting like it wanted to push me away yesterday,_ Adam finally texted back. Another long pause. _FUCK. Is it_

Nothing for a minute.

_If it was giving up it wouldn’t be thinking this hard, would it?_

Shiro swallowed hard. _Probably not,_ he sent back. _Just let it do w/e it’s doing? Keep going to see it. It’ll come around._ And now he wasn’t so sure it would, but… what the hell was he supposed to say?

He sat back and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. God, what if it _was_ giving up? Shiro couldn’t imagine that it’d be thinking that hard about that either, not if it’d already made up its mind to quit on him, but…

Dammit, Adam was just starting to wrap his brain around the idea of having a whole life ahead of him in this reality, maybe not an _easy_ life but one a hell of a lot less horrible than the one he’d escaped from and now _this._ That Lion was the only friend Adam had left from his reality. If it never flew again, never woke up again, never _talked to him_ again… he’d be devastated.

But what could Shiro do about that, other than hope that this was the Lion version of sitting down and seriously working through all its past trauma?

Maybe… maybe there was someone else he could ask. Someone who’d been there the whole time. Someone Adam’s Lion trusted.

Adam had already left the Lions’ hangar by the time he got there, but it wasn’t Adam he was going down there to talk to. He stared up at the Lion he’d once flown, the one he’d once been part of.

“What did you say to it?” he asked it, because he knew. He knew from the second he even _thought_ about coming down here that his and Keith’s Lion had something to do with this.

Whatever response Shiro thought he might expect, an image of Hunk yelling a word Shiro didn’t understand at a couple of bickering Galra wasn’t it.

He was just about to text Hunk to ask him what the hell a “pallanbowl” was when the alert went out.

Well, whatever it was, this would have to wait. Somewhere in the universe, the shit was about to hit the fan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… what’s the deal with Cosmo? Long story short: him sitting next to Adam on that S8 poster was like 90% of the reason I made his last name “Wolf.” 
> 
> Cosmo definitely had something to do with alt-Allura’s cross-reality wormhole punching into this reality. I don’t think he actively sought Adam out or anything, but he may have served as a sort of beacon? Exact mechanism unknown, as they say. 
> 
> Maybe he sees the Black Lion as a packmate. Maybe when he teleports, he briefly passes through other realities. Maybe he sort of sniffs out Black Lions and their Paladins in the other realities he passes through. Maybe there really was something to all the animal spirit stuff Adam’s grandparents told him about and there’s a reason for his family name, and Cosmo caught on to that. I guess we’ll never know!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “...Black!?”
> 
> Adam thought he’d heard Black roar, but…
> 
> Thought, hell. He knew he heard it.
> 
> He eyed that switch with the yellow and black guard on the right-hand panel as the warship’s ion cannon powered up.
> 
> Not yet. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was waiting for but… he’d know.
> 
> He just hoped that whatever Black was doing, it’d make it in time.

When Adam walked into the situation room, he found Iverson and Veronica up front. The MFE pilots and what Adam guessed was probably the  _ Atlas  _ bridge crew sat on one side of the long table in the middle of the room, and--holy shit, was that  _ Curtis? _

The Paladins and Coran sat on the other side of the table, with an empty seat between Takashi and Keith, which he guessed they were holding open for him. 

He sat down and waved across the table; Curtis went wide-eyed, mouthed  _ oh my god Adam,  _ and waved back. They’d have to catch up and exchange numbers later; Adam had the feeling they weren’t all here for social hour.

There were apparently a couple other people Iverson was waiting on--Sam came in a minute later, and then, behind him…

Adam slouched down in his seat and tried to make himself as close to invisible as he could. Nope. Couldn’t deal with Slav today either. But Slav seemed to be on his best behavior for now--if he  _ did  _ see Adam, at least he didn’t go apeshit about it. 

“All right, looks like everyone’s here, let’s get started.” Iverson cleared his throat. “A few hours ago the Blade of Marmora picked up a distress signal, what appears to be a large formation of Galra ships from Zarkon’s faction entered the Vara system and--”

“The  _ Vara  _ system!?” Adam felt the floor drop out from under him, felt that cold slimy thing squirming up into his chest--

_ “Lance!”  _

_ The ceiling was low, too low to just jetpack over the damn things. But… Adam did have pretty long legs and pretty good balance and if anyone should be doing this, it was him… “I’m going after him,” he said, but before he could jump Thace caught him by the arm and pulled him back. _

_ “No, you’re not,” he said, his voice low but firm.  _

_ “I-I have to, if he misses--” _

_ “If he misses and you’re up there with him, we have to find someone else to fly  _ two _ Lions.” Thace’s grip relaxed, but he didn’t quite let go of Adam. “I know how that sounds and I’m sorry. But as much as it would hurt us to lose him, we  _ cannot  _ afford to lose you.” _

_ Adam watched him jump again and this time he wobbled a little on the landing, but still landed safe. Barely. “Lance.  _ Please.”  _ He couldn’t watch this anymore. He couldn’t  _ not  _ watch it. “I’m begging you. Please just stop right there and wait for us.” _

_ “He’s getting away!” Lance pointed ahead, further into the cave. “This is faster and I’ve still got eyes on him!” _

_ “We’re not going to lose Ruvak! Hell, you can have first crack at him if you want once we catch up to him, just--please, just  _ stop!”  _ Adam’s voice cracked a little. “Please. Just wait. Okay, Lance? Please.” _

_ He looked like he was actually considering that for a minute.  _

_ And then he jumped again. But something went wrong, something shifted under his foot when he landed, and-- _

_ “Adam!” _

The situation room. A lot of very concerned eyes on him. Takashi’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. “Hey. You okay?”

“S-sorry.” Adam cleared his throat. “I’m fine. The--the  _ Vara  _ system?”

“That’s right.” Iverson and Takashi exchanged a look. “Something you want to tell us, Commander?”

Adam swallowed hard. “Did you… did you say those ships are from Zarkon’s faction?”

“Let me just turn this over to Krolia,” Iverson said, and Veronica patched a video transmission up to the main screen.

What Adam saw actually shocked the rising panic right out of him. There was no doubt in his mind who he was looking at.

Keith leaned over. “That’s my--”

Takashi did likewise. “That’s Keith’s--”

“That’s Keith’s mom,” Adam whispered before either of them could finish. “...what? I have  _ eyes.  _ You look just like her. _ ” _

Iverson shot the three of them a very pointed glare, and Adam shut up.

“We picked up the distress call about five vargas ago,” Krolia said on the screen. “A large formation of Galra ships flying under Zarkon’s banner attacked Vara-3 without warning. They focused most of their attack on the palace of the High Matriarch and their military facilities, though they did attack some other cultural sites. Temples, museums, things like that. We’re not sure exactly what they were after at this point.”

“Museums?” Takashi frowned. “Were they looting? That’s not like Zarkon’s faction. Could they be pirates, Krolia?”

“Unlikely. They seemed to be looking for specific items. Also...” The view on the screen changed to a huge formation of very well-maintained Galra warships stationed near a blue and green planet with a few little moons--Vara-3, presumably. Adam tried like hell to focus on the formation and not on that one ugly little lava-riddled moon in the corner of the screen. “There are too many ships, and they’re in too good a condition.”

“Look at that formation,” Takashi said. “That’s not something we’ve seen from Zarkon’s faction, either. They’re leaving an awful lot of open space in there…”

Adam looked up at the screen again. No, that definitely wasn’t the kind of formation Zarkon and his fleet favored… but he’d seen it before. “There was a Galra commander in my reality, guy named Ruvak, one of Lotor’s fanboys. That’s the kind of formation he liked to fly.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s Lotor’s faction,” Iverson pointed out.

“Maybe, but… he hated Zarkon’s guts in my reality and  _ our _ Lotor would do anything his daddy wanted, so I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea of him playing for Team Zarkon…”

“Tricking us into going in with the strategy we’d use against another faction…” Takashi thought that over. “It’s not something we’ve seen, but if anyone’s going to do that it’d be Lotor’s bunch. If that’s who we’re dealing with and we go in the way we would against Zarkon’s faction, we’re going to have a  _ very  _ bad time.”

“And I guarantee you you’re not seeing everything they brought.” Adam indicated the “gaps” in the formation. “Those aren’t gaps. They’re cloaked warships.” 

“Let me check something...” Krolia was quiet for a while. “...this isn’t the freshest intel but last we know… I’m showing that flagship is under a Commander Ruvak, yes. Appointed by Emperor Lotor.”

_ Fuck. _

“Okay.” Adam drew a deep breath and tried like hell to focus. Goddammit, not  _ this _ asshole again. Not now. “Just a disclaimer, everything I know is speculation based on what I ran into in my reality, but… I know this guy. I’ve fought him before.” 

“All right.” Takashi nodded. “It might be speculation but anything will help, you can fill us in on the way.”

“On the way?”

Takashi raised an eyebrow. “You’re coming with us.”

“I’m…” Well,  _ that  _ was unexpected. “Okay. Then I’m bringing Black.  _ I want a piece of him.” _

Takashi nodded. “If it’s ready to fly,  _ definitely  _ bring your Lion. If it’s not… we’ll… we’ll talk about that on the way.”

 

* * *

 

There was a lot to do and little time. Adam had already packed his essentials, and he dropped the bag right on the floor of Black’s cockpit and vaulted into the pilot seat. “Okay.” Adam said, hands on the sticks. “Time to go for a ride, buddy. Gotta load you up on the  _ Atlas  _ so… let’s get moving.”

Nothing. Nothing but that weird feeling of something big processing in the background.

_ “Black.”  _ Adam patted the sticks. “We’ve got a mission. We gotta go.  _ Wake up.” _

Nothing. His helmet still worked though. “Adam, if you’re coming, you need to get a move on.”

“Dammit. Hang on, Takashi--hang on--” He patted the sticks again, like that was actually going to get his Lion’s attention. “Come on, Black. You heard the man. We’re up.”

Still nothing.

“Hey.  _ Hey!  _ You remember what happened to Lance, right? You do, don’t you? Guess what? If we don’t do something  _ it’s going to happen again,  _ I  _ need  _ you on this, now let’s  _ go!”  _ Adam clenched his jaw, as if literally biting back the urge to scream until Black stopped doing whatever the hell it was doing and came to its senses. “Black, goddammit,  _ wake up--”  _

No… _no._ This wasn’t how this worked.

He unclenched his jaw and tried like hell to relax into the seat.

Closed his eyes. 

And took his hands off the control sticks.

“Well, here we are again,” he said. “I know I still can’t make you listen to me. I still trust you and I’m going to let you do what you think is right.” He opened his eyes. “But if you’re not coming with me, you better start warming up that emergency food goo dispenser… because when I get back, I’m planting my ass in this seat and  _ I am not moving until you wake up, do you understand me?” _

Nothing.

“Adam?” Takashi said through his helmet. “Need you on board in ten minutes if you’re coming.”

“I told you. I’m still your Paladin and I will  _ never  _ give up on you. No matter what.” Adam stood up, brushing his fingers over the back of the pilot seat. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

 

* * *

 

Black watched the Lions of this reality stand up and leave the hangar; the other Black shot it a pointed glare on the way out, so quickly that its Paladin probably never noticed. 

It knew it should have gone with the Paladin. But what could it do alone? Without its Lions?

It wasn’t meant to fight alone. It had done so before, true, but that was a temporary and dire situation, the Lions separated, the Paladin’s life in danger. It was not meant to fight alone forever.

It remembered its counterpart sending the sensation of its giant paw colliding with the side of Black’s head as if it had actually physically happened, remembered the images its counterpart had sent. Yes, there were other Lions here. That was all well and good. But they weren’t Black’s Lions. They had their own leader. Black was of no use to them. The Paladin needed to fly, but there were other things he could fly. Black was of no use to him, either.

The Paladin would come to understand that someday. Wouldn’t he?

He would, wouldn’t he?

But--just running a simulation to test a theory, of course, just to pass the time, simply because Black would have nothing better to do while the Paladin and the other Lions were away, because of course this wouldn’t happen--what if he  _ didn’t? _

The Paladin had lost  _ his  _ family, after all. His friends. His husband. His whole universe. The Paladins of this reality, the friends, the husband--they were the same people, and at the same time they weren’t. They weren’t the ones he lost. And still… he chose to keep fighting for their sake in  _ this  _ reality.

Black calculated and recalculated and came up with the same impossible results every time. It was not made to fight alone. It was never meant to fight alone. But it was made to  _ adapt,  _ wasn’t it? To its Paladin. To its environment. The Creator had given it the ability to evolve as it needed to.

But could it adapt to fill a role it had never been intended to fill?

It didn’t know.

 

* * *

 

Their staging area was in the Eth system, just down the cosmic road from the Vara system. There was a small rebel outpost here; Adam was hoping maybe he’d run into Matt, but this wasn’t his post and they weren’t staying long anyway. Just a stop for supplies and one more briefing, and then they’d be loading up and moving out.

“We’ve gotten an update on what Ruvak’s bunch was looking for on Vara-3,” Takashi said. “They were after some of the High Matriarch’s ceremonial regalia. Fortunately for her, she’s offworld right now but she didn’t take it with her, so… it looks like they got it, whatever it was..”

“Wait.” Adam shook his head. “ _ C _ eremonial regalia--ah, hell. If it’s what I’m thinking of, that stuff’s made out of trans-reality comet bits.”

“Nope,” Adam heard Pidge mutter from further down the table, “don’t like  _ that.” _

“Okay. How  _ much  _ trans-reality comet are we talking about?”

“Uh…” Adam tried to remember what all she had, but… the details were fuzzy. There were much bigger and much worse memories overshadowing this one, and besides, there wouldn’t be much of it. “It was all small stuff. Pair of earrings, bracelets, I think there was a pendant? Grand total of maybe… a lump the size of a ping-pong ball. They might have a couple other small artifacts made out of it too, nothing substantial, but… if someone’s desperate for comet bits,  _ any _ comet is worth going after.”

“Sounds like something Lotor’s faction would be into,” Takashi said. “All right. So between Ruvak being one of Lotor’s commanders, and his people going after comet fragments, at this point it’s safe to say that’s almost certainly who we’re dealing with here. The  _ Atlas  _ and the MFE fighters will deal with the ships; we’ll have the Blades and Voltron on the ground.”

“We know about his cloaked ships, and we know they can’t cloak and attack at the same time, so there’s our advantage,” Adam said. “Now… Ruvak is probably still on his flagship, but if things start going sour in the air, he’s going to bail out and head for this moon--” He indicated that ugly little ball of molten lava and jagged volcanic rock he’d been trying so hard not to think too much about. “He’s got a hideout there and it’s going to be boobytrapped like crazy. The good news is, I know exactly what to look for, so if that happens  _ I’d _ need to be the one to chase him and I’d prefer to go in alone. No sense putting anyone else in--”

...oh, Adam did  _ not  _ like the look on Takashi’s face when he said that.

“You, uh…” Takashi cleared his throat. “You’ll be staying on the  _ Atlas.” _

“Excuse me?” Adam blinked up at him. “Sorry, but it was my understanding that since you  _ wanted me to come on this mission,  _ you were actually going to let me participate in it?”

“You  _ are  _ participating in it.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

“Okay. No.  _ No, _ Adam, I’m not going to have this discussion with you  _ again  _ right now--”

“Yes,  _ Captain,”  _ Adam growled through his teeth.  _ “Now.” _

 

* * *

 

_ Shit. _

Okay. In Adam’s defense, Shiro probably should have had the “if your Lion doesn’t come along” part of their discussion with him  _ before  _ they shipped out and not sprung it on him in the middle of a briefing, but still...

“I’m  _ grounded!?” _

“Adam, would you please settle down and--”

“We’re heading for a combat zone, I’m the best fighter pilot you have, and you’ve got me  _ warming the damn bench!?” _

“Can you not--come on. Come  _ on. Out. _ Excuse us, everyone...” He grabbed Adam by the shoulder and marched him out of the situation room, across the corridor, and into his office. “No. Okay?  _ No, _ I’m still not clearing you to fly live combat, I said  _ training flights only! _ You’re--”

_“What the fuck, Takashi!?_ Why even let me come if you’re not even going to let me fly? You might as well have just left me on Earth! _”_

“I let you come because you’ve got  _ intel  _ on this guy and so far it’s all checked out and  _ we need that _ , not so you could jump in a fighter and throw yourself into--” Adam opened his mouth to argue with that, and Shiro cut him off. “Would you please just  _ listen to me?”  _  Shiro squeezed his eyes shut and drew a deep breath. “Just  _ listen!  _ I said when your Lion decided you were both ready to fly, I’d trust it. It’s not ready to fly, or you aren’t or both! Dammit,  _ we talked about this!” _

“That was before fucking  _ Ruvak  _ decided to show his face!”

“Why do you want a piece of this guy so bad, Adam? That first briefing, when you heard ‘Vara System,’ you had a fucking _flashback_ and don’t try to tell me you didn’t, _I have enough of them to know how they work!_ Listen--” Shiro laid his hand on Adam’s shoulder, gentle but firm. “If he goes to ground, we’ll handle it. Keith and Lance can go in after--”

_ “NO!”  _ Adam damn near screamed it at him, his eyes suddenly wild and full of terror.  _ “Not Lance! _ I don’t want him ANYWHERE NEAR that moon!”

The flashback. Adam’s determination to get in on this fight. And now… this.

Shiro did the math. 

“He killed Lance.” 

Adam dropped his head into his hands and nodded.

_ “Shit.”  _ Shiro shook his head and squeezed Adam’s shoulder. “Okay, So this is personal, then. All the more reason to keep you out of it.”

“It’s not just about that.  _ I know how he operates,  _ you  _ need _ me out there!”

“We need you and everything you know about this guy  _ here!  _ Adam, you barely have enough training hours logged to--”

“I’ve got more actual fighter stick time overall than anyone in the Garrison other then _you_ and you know damn well that if you can fly one fighter you can pretty much fly them all. And I’ve got more hours on the MFE sim than I had in the Black Lion the first time I flew _it_ into a fucking combat zone! Come to think of it, how many hours did _you_ have logged in the Black Lion the first time _you_ flew it into a fucking combat zone!?”

Shiro opened his mouth to counter that. He couldn’t. It was a fair point. “You’re not ready,” he finally said and okay, yeah, he knew it was weak but it was all he had. “Okay, you’re not--”

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “You said it yourself. You can’t keep me out of the air.”

“I could throw you in the brig.” And Shiro regretted that the second it was out of his mouth because  _ Shirogane, what the fuck?  _ Of course he wouldn’t actually do it, he was ashamed to have even threatened it but dammit--

“You could,” Adam said. “But you won’t. Because  _ you know I’m right.  _ You  _ need  _ me in the air on this and you know it.”

“Adam--” 

Too late. He was already out the door, and Shiro had a briefing to get back to.

 

* * *

 

Adam knew it wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone, least of all him, if he spent the rest of this damn deployment in a pissy mood because his well-meaning but overprotective kind-of-husband and superior officer wouldn’t let his butt touch the seat of an actual damn MFE fighter.

He flew a couple of sim missions, but that wasn’t doing the trick. No, what he needed was some good old fashioned physical exertion, and preferably the kind that involved beating the absolute shit out of something with six feet of quarterstaff-shaped bayard. And Gladiator robots were a hell of a lot more satisfying to beat on than trees or heavy bags. They were even more satisfying to beat on when they, too, were armed with six feet of quarterstaff. 

Adam wanted to work on some better ways to use his shield with the staff, since now he could actually use the shield without having to worry about the physical and mental toll the pain took on him. And maybe he could brainstorm some off-label uses for it. And maybe, just maybe, see if he could figure out how to tap into all that potential he could feel in it. Could he change its size? Its shape? So far all he’d really figured out how to do with it was shield-bash, and that was pretty effective but… 

Eventually he became aware that he was being watched, and once he dispatched the latest Gladiator, he turned around to see who his audience was.

“Oh hey,” Hunk said, one huge hand raised in a friendly wave. “I was gonna work on making my bayard do a non-gun thing but... you’ve got the deck right now, it’s cool. I’ll come back later.”

“No, no.” Adam shook his head and whipped his helmet off. “It’s fine.” He stowed his bayard and stalked off to a bench. 

“Well…” Hunk shifted his weight from one foot to the other a few times. “I was gonna beat on a robot, but… since you’re here… and you’re a teacher… and you’re one of the  _ cool  _ teachers…”

Adam just shook his head and huffed out an incredulous laugh. “Dial it back there, Hunk.”

“I mean… you said we could work on it later and you don’t have to if you’re busy but…” Oh God, there they were, the big brown puppydog eyes, this was  _ not necessary _ . “Could you maybe… help me with my bayard? Please?”

...oh, what the hell, why not. “Yeah, sure,” Adam replied. “Apparently I’m not allowed to do anything else useful right now.”

Hunk shot him a weird little look. “What do you mean? You do useful stuff all the time.”

“Eh.” Adam waved a hand. “Not the kind of useful stuff I  _ want  _ to do.”

“Ooh. Yeah. Shiro still didn’t budge on the ‘not letting you fly’ thing, huh?” 

“Nope.” Adam scooted over a little, and Hunk joined him on the bench. “I know he means well, he’s just driving me nuts. He’s treating me like I’m made out of glass or something.” He huffed out a breath and dropped his head into his hands. “I’m  _ fine,  _ okay, maybe I’m not a hundred percent but I just--I feel like I’m not doing  _ anyone  _ any good here and--”

Hunk gently thwapped Adam on the back of the head. “Palen-bol.”

Adam’s head jerked up. “...what!?”

_ “Palen-bol,”  _ Hunk repeated. “It’s a Galra thing I picked up. Kinda turned into a Paladin in-joke. ...okay, okay, it really just turned into a  _ me  _ in-joke. It hasn’t caught on yet.”

“Huh.” Adam couldn’t help but snicker a little. “What’s it mean?”

“Well… like, originally or the way I use it?”

“Both.”

Hunk cleared his throat. “Originally? It means ‘the enlightening pain.’”

Okay, yeah, that was actually kind of funny. “Yep, sounds like a Galra thing. And the way you use it…”

“It turned into like… a tough love kinda thing? Y’know, when someone tells you something you don’t really want to hear but you  _ need _ to… that’s palen-bol.” Hunk patted Adam on the back. “You were in pretty bad shape when you landed, y’know. And then there was that memory thing, and your arm, and you’ve gotta be worried about your Lion--I’m just saying, even if you weren’t doing anything super important right now, nobody would blame you.”

Adam shook his head. “I know, but--”

“But you  _ are  _ doing important stuff. Maybe not the important stuff you really  _ want  _ to do, but it’s still really important stuff and… we’re still really glad you came back.”

Yeah. That was what Hunk did. That was what he always did. 

Adam returned that pat on the back and considered his bayard for a moment. “So. Have you  _ ever  _ really had a particular preference for any kind of a weapon that doesn’t go ‘pew pew?’”

“Mmm…” Hunk chewed that over a bit. “Nnnnnnnot really? Y’know, now that I think about it… I never really did much fighting at all till I started at the Garrison. Or…  _ any  _ fighting.” 

This was going to be a tough nut to crack. “So… you would have picked up a training weapon at  _ some  _ point, then.”

“Yeah, but…” Hunk shrugged. “I wasn’t really that good with any of them.”

“I think with a bayard it’s less about what you’re already good at and more about just… what speaks to you. Maybe just what you  _ need.”  _

“Huh. Why’s yours a staff, then? You kinda strike me as more of a ‘pew pew’ kind of guy, y’know?” Hunk made fingerguns to illustrate the pew pews, and Adam laughed a little in spite of his sour mood..”Like… maybe a pistol or something?”

“Eh. Just between you and me I probably  _ should  _ work on a ranged option but… I’ve never really needed it.” Adam stood up and called his bayard; it came as the staff, as it usually did first. “I guess for me, it’s… I’ve kinda got a special place in my heart for fighting with a quarterstaff. My dad taught me when I was a kid.” He shot Hunk a little grin. “And… well, that was the only weapon Takashi could never beat me with.”  _ At least until he got his damn floaty arm,  _ he thought.

“Huh.” Hunk mulled this over and nodded. “How about the sword?”

“A six-foot stick doesn’t work so well in tight quarters and sometimes you just really need a blade,” Adam said, trying not to think too much about the last time he really needed the blade. He switched his bayard anyway. 

Hunk studied it for a bit. “Hey,” he said, “that looks kinda like Keith’s Marmora blade.”

“Yeah.” Adam ran his fingertips along the blunt back of the blade. “Thace taught me how to fight with a sword so… I guess that’s why.” He switched back to the staff. “So… anything you can think of that speaks to you like that?”

Hunk frowned and shook his head. 

“Battleaxe?” 

“Nope.”

“Warhammer?”

“Mmm… nope.”

“You’re an engineer. A f--” Adam stopped himself--swearing around Keith was a non-issue and he might not worry too much about letting it slip around Lance, but somehow saying the fuck word in front of Hunk seemed almost blasphemous. “--a  _ heck _ -off big wrench?”

Hunk looked horrified at the mere suggestion. “I wouldn’t do that to my tools!”

“You’re a cook. A heck-off big knife?”

Hunk looked even  _ more  _ horrified.  _ “I wouldn’t do that to my KNIVES!” _

“So you’re perfectly happy just… throwing hands, then.”

“Well… yeah,” Hunk looked down at said hands and wiggled his fingers. “Never really  _ needed  _ anything else, not close-up anyway.”

“But you  _ might.”  _ Adam had an idea. It might not work this time, but maybe it’d plant a little seed…  He got up, put his helmet back on, and headed back out, beckoning Hunk to follow him. “C’mon. Let’s try it.”

“Uh… okay?” Hunk followed Adam out into the middle of the training deck and squared up.

“Quick question before we start, though.” Adam put his bayard away, for now. “I don’t know if you did this on this side, but it shouldn’t matter--one time you made these little fruit tart thingies for us. And you put this cute little twist of candied peel or something on top of it. What was that?”

“That would be what we call a  _ ‘garnish, _ ” Hunk said, and Adam couldn’t help cracking a little smile at his tone.

“And what’s a garnish for? Explain like I’m four years old.”

“It just, y’know… it’s for presentation.”

“That’s a big word. I’m four years old.”

“W-well… It’s something you add that kind of... it doesn’t really make the food  _ taste  _ better--I mean, sometimes it adds some flavor but that’s not really what it’s for. It’s just to… y’know, take what’s already there and just give it a little  _ extra, _ just kind of--”

He stopped. 

Adam could  _ see  _ the light bulb come on.

“Let’s try it,” he said. He dropped back into a ready stance. Unarmed. Hands up, head down. “Come get me.”

Mostly he dodged and blocked, but he threw enough quick little jabs in just to be annoying, just to get the point across. Of course Hunk was pretty slow to annoy, so then he added a few feet to the mixture once in a while. And when  _ that  _ failed to annoy him as quickly as Adam would have liked, he started running his mouth.

“C’mon, Hunk. Put some parsley on this.” Adam beamed like an angel and rapped his knuckles on the back of Hunk’s helmet. “Carrot roses?” His toes tapped Hunk’s shoulder. “Rainbow sprinkles?” He ducked out from under Hunk’s punches at the last possible second, called up his shield to give him nothing but glancing blows off the particle barrier. “Little bit of lemon zest?” He darted in and out, again and again, dispensing an increasingly annoying series of love taps. “How about some edible gold le--”

“Aw,  _ COME ON, _ ADAM!”

Adam saw a flash of yellow.

And the next thing he knew, he was airborne.

He landed on his back hard enough to knock the breath out of him, bounced once, rolled, and skidded to rest on his stomach with his glasses missing and his helmet rolling around in a lazy little circle a few feet away…  _ halfway across the damn training deck. _

_ “Oh jeez! _ Oh no! Sorry! I’m sorry, Adam! I don’t know what happened--I just--” Hunk looked down at his hands and shut up quickly. “Whoa,” he said. “Oh,  _ wow…” _

Adam rolled onto his back and coughed and spluttered and took a moment to catch his breath. He raised his head up just enough to look around for his glasses, and he spotted them by his left foot. Whatever the hell Hunk had hit him with… shit, he thought Hunk hit like a freight train  _ before!?  _ The guy just knocked him halfway across the training deck like a rag doll, and for a hot second Adam was sure he’d pulled the cannon after all and he was going to look at the wall behind him and see his spine and several fairly important organs stuck to it...

He sat up and put his glasses back on. And despite the creeping certainty that he was going to need a little ten-minute cryopod nap to recover from this, he grinned.

Adam was probably going to be bruised all to hell later, but right now he didn’t care. Hunk was standing there, eyes wide, mouth half-open, staring at his hands... and the massive yellow and white armored gauntlets encasing them almost to his elbows. 

_ God,  _ Adam loved his job. Even if it did sometimes require a little minor first aid once in a while, those little  _ aha  _ moments were so very worth it.

“Did I just, uh…” Hunk wiggled his armored fingers. “Did I just…  _ rocket punch _ you?”

“Maybe a little,” Adam wheezed.

“Um. Do you… need some help?”

“Nope.” Adam flopped onto his back again and gave Hunk a thumbs-up. “I’m… just gonna lay here until all my bones and organs go back where they’re supposed to be.”

 

* * *

 

This should have been impossible.

_ This was not what Black was for. _ Without its Lions it had no purpose, without Voltron it was useless, it  _ knew  _ that.

But the Paladin had lost the rest of  _ his _ team. And still he carried on.

This was not what Black was meant to do. It was meant to lead. Not to fight alone.

But--again, just running this as a simulation to test a theory-- _ if  _ Black were thrust into a hypothetical situation wherein it had no choice but to fight alone for the rest of its existence…  _ theoretically… _

Theoretically, it could. Theoretically, there was really nothing stopping it. If it was truly impossible for Black to operate alone, it should have shut down the microtick the other Lions fell into enemy hands. It certainly should have shut down the microtick it crossed into this reality without the other Lions.

Theoretically… there was nothing stopping Black from carrying on.

It ran the simulation again. And again. And twice more. Ten times. Ten thousand times. It kept coming up with the same answer.

Theoretically, it  _ could  _ learn to operate alone. It was possible. Black could no longer deny this.  _ It was possible. _

It thought of its Lions. It thought of the Castle. It thought of the Lions in this reality. It thought of the Paladin.

How was the Paladin doing it?

That was something to think about.

 

* * *

 

Shiro knew he should probably be sleeping right now--he was already exhausted, and it was unlikely that the shit would hit the fan within the next six to eight hours. But it wasn’t  _ impossible,  _ and the sooner he turned in the more likely it was that he’d get enough sleep to function on.

But here he was, up on the observation deck, standing there looking out one of the huge windows, letting his eyes wander from one distant star to the next.

“I thought you’d be up here.”

Shiro didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to. Adam came up behind him, close enough that he could feel the warmth of Adam’s body against his back.

“I used to always find you on the roof looking at the stars when you were having a rough time. Guess this is the closest thing we’ve got to a roof...”

“Eh.” Shiro shook his head. “I guess if I  _ really  _ wanted to I could put on a suit and actually go sit outside…” They both laughed softly at that, and Shiro couldn’t help but shiver a little at Adam’s breath on the back of his neck.

“We had a rule on my side.” Adam wrapped his arms around Shiro’s waist and pulled him close against his chest. “We didn’t go to bed mad at each other. We never broke it. Not even once. I’m not about to start now and, well… no telling when either of us is going to get to bed, so… I’m sorry.”

Shiro wriggled a little, and Adam loosened his grip enough to let him turn around. “I’m sorry too,” he said, wrapping his arms around Adam’s shoulders. “I know I should trust you on this, it’s just…” He dropped his head onto Adam’s shoulder and drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with Adam’s scent like he thought he’d be able to keep it forever that way. “Every time you talk about how much you want to fight all I can think about is--is your name on that fucking  _ wall. _ ”

“But that’s not going to happen again.” Adam rubbed his back, slow and soothing. “What was I flying? One of the MFEs, or--”

“No.” Shiro shook his head. “I’m not sure what exactly but--probably a Fury.”

“Why the--” Adam shook his head. “never mind. Okay. So… standard Garrison fighter weapons. Which did  _ nothing,  _ I’m guessing.”

Shiro nodded.

“What would I  _ theoretically  _ be flying right now?”

“Uh… one of the first-gen MFE fighters--we bring them along as spares in case there’s a problem with the ones they’re flying now…”

“Mm-hmm.” Adam kept rubbing his back, kept his voice low and steady. “And since you’re still using them as spares, it’s safe to say the first-gen MFEs can still wreck their fair share of Galra shit, right?” Shiro couldn’t help sputtering out a laugh at that. 

“Like I said. I  _ know  _ things are different now but…” 

“I’m going to be in a fighter packing firepower that was  _ designed  _ to be effective against the Galra. I’ve got  _ experience  _ fighting the Galra. I’ve fought  _ Ruvak _ .” Adam pulled back and cupped Shiro’s face in his hands.  _ “It’s not going to happen again. _ ”

Shiro tried to argue with him, tried to fight him, because even the thought of this was almost too much to take right now. 

Instead, he pulled Adam down and kissed him as if that one kiss would have to last him the rest of his life, and he tried like hell not to think about the possibility that it might. 

He wasn’t going to think about that right now. He couldn’t afford to think about that now.

“Okay,” Shiro whispered against Adam’s lips. “Okay--I’ll call down and tell them to get one of the spares ready for--God, Adam,  _ I hate this--” _

“I know, baby.” Adam rubbed his back and kissed him again. “I know. But I’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Do you need a flight suit or-”

“I think I'd rather wear my armor, if that'll work?”

“Even better.” Shiro did  _ not  _ want to think about the possibility of Adam having to punch out in the middle of a combat zone but… if he did, his Paladin armor would be better protection than a Garrison flight suit. “Just--please, just be careful.”

“I will.” Adam nodded and kissed him one more time, just a quick one. “I’ll come back to you.  _ I love you.” _

They stood there for a while in silence, arms around one another. “Still got some time before the mission,” Shiro finally said. “Maybe we should try and get some sleep?” Right, like  _ that  _ was going to happen now.

“Probably not a bad idea,” Adam said, and patted his back. “C’mon. You’ve been my pillow all week. I’ll be yours this time.”

God, if anything happened, that would just make it harder… but on the other hand, what if this was the last--no. Not going there.

Shiro nodded and let Adam lead him to his cabin.

 

* * *

 

Sleeping was all they did--well, Adam slept and Shiro watched him sleep.

He  _ was  _ coming back this time, dammit.

 

* * *

 

When Adam opened the door to the MFE hangar eight hours later and came in with his armor on, he walked right into an ambush.

“I am  _ not okay  _ with this,  _ sir _ ,” Griffin barked the second he walked in, leaning on that  _ sir  _ in a way that brought to mind a list of words he was mentally replacing it with,  _ all  _ of them likely to earn him a fun trip to Iverson’s office if he said them out loud to Adam’s face.

Adam rolled his eyes. “Okay, I get it, I’m sorry I made you throw up in your own fighter but--”

“I already told you, we don’t need you holding our hands out there!”

“Holding your-- _ what!?  _ Are you still--look, you’ve got this all wrong,” Adam said. “I mean, sure, you guys are still technically cadets and I’m a senior officer but this is just a temporary arrangement and  _ I am not here to take over command of your squadron! _ Where the hell did you even get that idea!? Literally  _ nobody  _ is talking about me doing that except  _ you!” _

Well, whatever Griffin was expecting Adam to say, that apparently wasn’t it. “Then why are you--”

“Why am I flying with you? Because you’re the only MFE squadron we have and if I’m going to fly on this mission,  _ it kind of has to be with you?”  _ Adam threw up his hands. “Do you want me to defer command to you? I’m absolutely serious. If you feel that strongly about it, it’s all yours. As long as I get to fly, I’m fine with whatever. _ ” _

Griffin looked over his shoulder, checking the rest of his team for reactions, and again, whatever he hoped or expected to see this clearly wasn’t it. Rizavi, just slowly shaking her head  _ no.  _ Kinkade, saying the same but letting just one raised eyebrow do the talking. And Leifsdottir…

“You do remember that he helped teach  _ us _ how to fly, right?” she said quietly, and Griffin huffed out a sigh, shoulders slumped.

“No sir,” he finally said. “You’re in charge.” Adam nodded.

“If it makes you feel better, I’m only with you until my Lion decides to get its head together. Or they get the next MFE squadron ready, whichever comes first. Now...” He put on his helmet and clapped Griffin on the shoulder. “Where’s my fighter?”

“Right here. They’re giving you my old one, sir.” Griffin said, and he seemed to… unclench a little. “Watch the stick, it gets a little loose sometimes.”

 

* * *

 

Adam expected it to feel weird. Takashi had a point, after all--the only real stick time he had on an MFE was that five minutes in the back seat with Griffin, and that maneuver pilots affectionately referred to as the Vomit Comet was not one that would be handy in live combat.

Sitting in the cockpit of literally  _ anything  _ but Black should have felt weird now, he thought. But it really didn’t. He was flying again, and that was all that mattered.

“All right,” he said, “the  _ Atlas  _ is going to thin the fighters and the cloaked warships out for us, we’re concentrating on the warships we can see. Go for the ion cannons first. If you see a pod break from the flagship hit it if you can but  _ don’t chase it.  _ Leave that to me.”

“As soon as we’ve got the ground secure we’ll be up to help,” Keith said. “Got our hands kinda full down here though.”

“Do what you gotta do.” Adam replied. “Griffin, Rizavi, take the right. Kinkade, Leifsdottir, you’re with me on the left, let’s get it done and go home!”

 

* * *

 

_ He’s okay,  _ Shiro told himself.  _ He’s okay. Listen to him. He’s got this. He’s going to be okay. _

The  _ Atlas  _ hit the cloaked warships first--Ruvak wouldn’t be expecting them to know they were there, and that paid off. Direct hits on every single one of them at once.

Well, that was one potentially ugly problem dealt with. Now to clean up those fighters...

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, the Vareen self-defense force was pretty heavily mech-based. Voltron they weren’t, but the Vareen mechs were tough and agile and packed some pretty respectable firepower. 

That was the good news.

The bad news was, Ruvak had taken the whole damn fleet over. 

So now Voltron and the Blades had a situation where they had to shut this shit down without destroying the mechs, because just taking out the mechs would leave the Vareen defenseless, and…  _ ugh. _

Pidge maybe had a solution, but it would take some time--time they wouldn’t be able to use to help the  _ Atlas  _ and the MFE pilots-plus-Adam.

 

* * *

 

Adam knew about Ruvak’s cloaked warships. 

In his defense, he hadn’t run across the cloaked  _ fighters _ .

Until now.

By the time his sensors picked up the formation on his six dropping cloak to attack, it was too late. His reflexes and the MFE’s engine were enough to save him from a direct hit and the  _ Atlas  _ took care of them once they dropped cloak, but the damage was done.

_“Dammit!”_ Adam looked over his shoulder, put eyes on the damage, and immediately wished he hadn’t.  _ Fuck. _ “I’m hit!”

“How bad?” Adam could tell Takashi was trying to keep calm, but… dammit.

“Bad enough.” Adam ignored the alarms, tried the stick, tried the throttle, got nothing. “Controls are gone.”  _ Black,  _ he thought,  _ if you’re going to do something, NOW’S THE TIME! _

Goddammit, and here he’d stood there with Takashi in his arms and swore this wasn’t going to happen… okay. Think.  _ Think,  _ dammit. 

No controls. This was pretty much a worst case scenario. Assuming nothing else was hit, and assuming it didn’t set off some Godawful cascade of system failures, his fighter was going to go where it was pointed. But his evasive maneuvers had cut his speed and now he wasn’t going fast enough to do any appreciable ramming damage to the warship. He could punch out, which would leave him with nothing but his Paladin armor between his ass and that ion cannon, maybe his jetpack could get him clear fast enough but--oh fucking goddamn hell  _ Black, PLEASE! _

 

* * *

 

_ Black, if you’re going to do something, NOW’S THE TIME! _

The Paladin’s voice hit even harder than its counterpart’s astral paw. The Paladin was in danger. And Black still didn’t know if it could do anything about that.

_ This may not work,  _ the Creator’s daughter had said. _ But I have to try. _

What would have happened if she hadn’t tried? 

Black thought of its Lions, its Castle, its Paladins. It thought of the Lions of this reality and their Paladins. It thought of the Creator’s daughter.

_ Black, PLEASE! _

What would have happened if she hadn’t tried?

What would happen if  _ Black  _ didn’t try?

Black didn’t need to run a simulation to know that the outcome would be unacceptable.

_ It had to try. _

It queried the Paladin’s armor. It acquired his location. It set its course.

It stood up and roared, knowing the Paladin would hear. All around it, Black sensed the tiny forms of the humans who worked in this place scuttling as far away from it as they could, as fast as they could, most of them making very loud noises as they did.

The Black Lion of Voltron was not meant to operate alone. It was never meant to operate alone. And it still wasn’t sure if it could. But as it turned out… Black had been approaching this problem from the wrong angle. It was not meant to operate alone. That much was true.

But now Black understood what its counterpart had tried to tell it.

_ It wasn’t alone. _

Black fired its thrusters and although it knew they wouldn’t hear, it sent that little soothing noise that meant  _ sorry  _ to the humans who would have to deal with the mess it left on its way out.

 

* * *

 

Things were normally pretty quiet around the Garrison when the  _ Atlas  _ was on a deployment--in no small part because almost all of the usual suspects were on board. Iverson knew perfectly well they’d be screwed without Shirogane and his bunch but he was also fairly sure he’d still have some hair left if not for them.

And now that  _ Wolf _ was back with them… he was going to need to start keeping a  _ big  _ bottle of antacids in his desk drawer and an even bigger bottle of bourbon in his quarters, wasn’t he?

So with all the usual suspects away, he sure as hell didn’t expect to hear the maintenance and security crew in the Lions’ almost-empty hangar screaming bloody murder over the comm. And he couldn’t understand a damn word, and  _ they  _ wouldn’t settle down...

Hell with it, he’d just have to go see for himself.

And when he did see for himself, he immediately wished he hadn’t and he knew the second he was off duty he was definitely going to have to see to that bigger bottle of bourbon.

He stood there for a long time, staring slack-jawed at the mess. Then he grabbed the first guard he saw.

“Son,” Iverson began and oh, Command was not paying him  _ nearly  _ enough for this, “am I to understand that Commander Wolf’s Lion did ... _ that _ on its own!?”

The poor guy opened his mouth to answer that, and the sad remains of the hangar door gave up the ghost and came crashing down.

 

* * *

 

“...Black!?”

Adam thought he’d heard Black roar, but… 

Thought, hell. He  _ knew  _ he heard it.

He eyed that switch with the yellow and black guard on the right-hand panel as the warship’s ion cannon powered up.

Not yet. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was waiting for but… he’d know.

He just hoped that whatever Black was doing, it’d make it in time.

 

* * *

 

Shiro heard it.

_ Hurry,  _ he thought, not sure if Adam’s Lion would listen to him but all the same…  _ hurry, please, he’s in trouble, hurry-- _

 

* * *

 

“Someone get over there and help him!”

“I’m pinned down! Paladins, we could use a hand up here!”

“We’ve almost got the ground secured, but the Vareen mechs aren’t going to be spaceworthy for a while and we won’t be able to count on them for--ah, dammit, where did  _ these  _ guys come from!?”

 

* * *

 

The ion cannon fired, and there was nothing Adam could do about it.

He shut his eyes and braced for whatever was going to happen.

_ I’m sorry,  _ he thought,  _ God, Takashi, I’m so fucking sorry-- _

 

* * *

 

_ “Whoa!  _ Guys--guys, did you see--whatever that was?”

“What the--”

“It’s his--”

 

* * *

 

Whatever was going to happen… didn’t.

What  _ did  _ happen was a brilliant flash of blue-white--and the triumphant roar of a Lion.

Adam opened his eyes. 

A particle barrier spread across his entire field of vision, shielding him from the warship’s cannon fire. Not the  _ Atlas’  _ Garrison-orange barrier--the same bright blue-white as the Castle’s barrier… and as Black’s. And there was Black, right in the middle of it, its broad back turned to him, wings spread wide to hold the particle barrier up.

“Adam!?” That was Takashi, and Adam knew he shouldn’t laugh but there was something just so endearingly bewildered in his voice that he couldn’t help it. “Are you--what’s going on over there?”

Adam grinned like a loon.  _ “It’s Black!”  _

He heard a deep sigh of relief. “Tell it it’s about damn time!”

Adam burst out laughing, but he still had a problem. He was still in a badly damaged fighter, his controls were still out, and he was still on a collision course with a Galra warship--which was powering up its ion cannon for another shot.

He eyed that switch with the yellow and black guard again. The controls were out, but the egress system should still be operational.

Only one way to find out. 

“Okay, Black,” he said, flipping that yellow and black guard up and putting his finger on the switch, “get ready to catch…”

 

* * *

 

“Adam? You broke up there.” Shiro knew perfectly well that he hadn’t, but he could not have possibly heard… did he say  _ get ready to catch!?  _ “What are you  _ doing!?” _

“Captain?” Veronica looked back at him over her shoulder. “He just blew his canopy.”

If Shiro had a single hair that hadn’t turned white yet, well… there it went. “Adam,  _ what the hell are you doing!?” _

“If I had to guess,” Veronica said, “I’d guess he’s punching out.”

 

* * *

 

Everything went weirdly silent when Adam blew the canopy off his fighter--well, not so weird, vacuum of space and all, but knowing about the science behind it didn’t make it any less surreal to have all this chaos going on around him and to hear  _ nothing _ save for his own breath and his own heartbeat and whatever other noises were coming from inside his helmet.

It was an image that would keep coming back to him for years to come.

No time to dwell on it now, though. He unbuckled his harness, reached under the seat, grabbed hold of that yellow-and-black handle, and  _ yanked. _

He’d never had to eject before, so until now he had no idea what it actually felt like. To put it bluntly:  _ it sucked.  _ He swore he felt his spine compress to the length of a roll of pennies. He was supposed to still have his harness on, but being strapped to the seat would have obstructed his jetpack and then he would have still needed to get out of the damn thing once Black caught him, and when he and the seat parted ways it smacked him on the tailbone hard enough to make his eyes water (ah yes, another area the Paladin armor did a less-than-stellar job of protecting). And of course, there was still a battle raging all around him and nothing between him and it but his Paladin armor.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to stay out there long. He barely had time to watch his abandoned fighter catch a direct hit and explode before Black scooped him up.

_ God,  _ it was good to see Black all lit up like this again, hear the otherworldly hum of Altean propulsion tech he didn’t even begin to understand in his ears again. He sprinted up to the cockpit, planted his ass in the pilot seat, and grabbed the sticks. “Welcome back, buddy,” he said, and he felt Black purr.  _ “Atlas,  _ do you read me? Sorry about the, uh... unplanned equipment change, but I’m back in business now.”

“All  _ right!”  _ Somehow, Takashi managed to sound both relieved and kind of like he wanted to strangle Adam at the same time. “Okay. Just to avoid confusion, we’re going to refer to your Lion as ‘Black-2.’ Unless you’ve got a better idea.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Adam heard an indignant snort. 

“Oh,  _ what? _ Keith’s was here first. You’re the second one. That’s how this works. Have  _ you _ got a suggestion?” 

Bemused silence.

“Didn’t think so. Black-2 it is. _ ” _

_ All right,  _ he thought,  _ now that I’m not literally two seconds from fucking dying, let’s take another look at this situation. _

The problem was, there was too much bullshit between the  _ Atlas  _ and the flagship. The MFE fighters were agile enough to deal with the warships, but those pesky damn fighters were everywhere and Adam knew there were probably more cloaked ones out there, and the Paladins were still tied up with their own piece of Ruvak’s fleet over in the area of that damn moon.

Black-2 poked his mind, a little touch that felt like  _ if I may offer a suggestion…   _ It followed that with an image of Adam ramming his shield into Takashi’s midsection. Then it pulled another image from Adam’s memories: an icebreaker ship.

“Oh, I like that.” Adam grinned. “You sure you’re up to it?”

Black-2 assured him it was. 

“All right, then. MFE pilots, fall back and form up on me!”

“Yes, sir!”

Adam knew he’d have to apologize to Griffin later for throwing his old fighter away, but… well… ah, screw it. “Okay! I want Griffin and Kinkade on the right, Rizavi and Leifsdottir on the left, but stay tight behind me until you’re clear to hit the flagship!”

“Uh… Commander Wolf?” That was Griffin. “Where are  _ you  _ going?”

Black-2 deployed its particle barrier again, in a slightly different shape. It was angled, like a wedge made to cut through obstacles.

“Straight down the middle,” he said. 

 

* * *

 

“Straight down the-- _ ” _

All right. On the one hand, if this worked--and honestly, Shiro had no reason at this point to believe it wouldn’t--it would be  _ amazing  _ to watch.

On the other… was Adam  _ trying  _ to give him a heart attack!?

 

* * *

 

Black-2 plowed through the morass of fighters, cloaked and not, with the MFE fighters close behind its shield. By the time they closed in on Ruvak’s flagship, the Galra fighter pilots started to come around to the idea that they were in deep trouble and there were very few warships left for them to retreat to, so if they wanted to live it might behoove them to  _ get the fuck out of the way.  _ The ones that  _ didn’t  _ get out of the way and managed to not get bulldozed were not-so-gently taken out of the way either by the  _ Atlas  _ or the MFE fighters.

Adam watched the flagship, watched it  _ very  _ carefully for anything leaving it instead of retreating into it. They’d have to take it out fast, before Ruvak could get to a pod or a fighter or whatever he’d be flying in this reality.

Ion cannons first. That was quick enough--five cannons, four MFE fighters plus Black-2.

Then  _ take the bastard apart.  _ “Concentrate on the engines,” Adam said, pondering how to do this with Black--shield-bashing this thing might work, and of course Black still had its jaw blades and mouth and tail cannons and stuff, but this was a  _ big  _ ship…

And then he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Not out there--right here, in the cockpit.

Black-2’s bayard port was open. And it looked live.

“...really!?” Adam considered it for a moment. “I thought you only did that when we were in Voltron…”

What the hell, might as well give it a try… Adam called his bayard, slam-dunked it into the port, and--

Okay, yeah. This was  _ definitely  _ a new thing, and Adam  _ liked it. _

Black-2 spread its wings wide--and unfurled them, revealing a series of black “feathers” edged with white. They weren’t quite symmetrical, not quite feather-shaped. Adam couldn’t get a good look at them from the cockpit, but later Takashi would tell him they were shaped like his sword. Like a Marmoran blade. Like the weapon Thace had taught him to use. 

Somehow, Adam thought, this was fitting. And a little . _..extra._ But fitting.

His new wing blades made short work of any fighters that got too close, cut through the hull of the flagship like tissue paper. And still… no escape pods broke free. With the worst of the mess on this end cleaned up, the MFE fighters pulled back to see if they could help lighten the Paladins’ load.

Where was Ruvak?

Adam scanned the flagship for--well,  _ anything.  _ He found nothing. Absolutely  _ nothing. _

“Son of a  _ bitch!”  _ Adam spat.  _ “Atlas,  _ I’m showing the flagship is  _ empty!  _ Zero life signs on board, it’s been flying on remote control all this time! It’s a  _ decoy!”  _

_ Where the fuck was Ruvak!? _

“What the--hang on.” Takashi was quiet for a moment. “Keith, what’s going on over there?”

“We’ve still got a couple live warships over here,” Keith said. “Nothing we can’t handle, we’ll have them down in a few--wait.” A long pause. “A pod just broke from one of them, it’s heading for the volcanic moon.”

Adam felt like he should have been surprised but really… nah. Not considering who they were dealing with. “On my way.”

And then Adam heard the worst thing he could have possibly heard. 

“I’ve got eyes on him,” Lance said. “I’m following him in.”

No!  _ No!  _ Oh God, oh  _ fuck, NO! _

_ "Lance!” _ Adam wasn’t sure who said it first, him or Takashi, but either way either Lance didn’t hear or didn’t listen. “Do  _ not  _ follow him! Leave him to me! Lance, are you listening to me!?”

“...ll be c... not g…”

Ah,  _ fuck,  _ that’s right--Ruvak had the place set up with signal jammers. He’d be able to talk to Lance once he got through it, but they wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone outside their range--and no one outside would be able to talk to  _ them. _

“All right,” Keith said, “Pidge, Hunk, Allura, can you take care of those last couple warships? I’m going in with Adam--”

_ “No!” _ Adam shouted back, “No, Keith! Ruvak’s going to have that place boobytrapped all to hell! The more people that go with me,  _ the less chance you have of them all coming back!”  _

“Adam--” Takashi’s voice was calm, but Adam could hear the rising panic in it. “I don’t like this.”

“I’m the only person you’ve got that’s fought Ruvak before,” Adam said. “I know how he operates. I know his tricks. I know how to spot them.  _ It has to be me.”  _

Takashi was quiet for a second. “You understand why I’m worried about you doing this.”

“I know.” And if Adam said he wasn’t terrified right now, that he couldn’t feel that cold slimy thing waking up in his guts, that he couldn’t feel one long icy fingertip reaching up to caress his heart he’d be lying but dammit, he wasn’t going to let this happen again, he wasn’t, he fucking was  _ not.  _ “I’ll be okay. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to reschedule a nervous breakdown for later.”

Takashi didn’t argue with that. Maybe he knew he didn’t have room to. “All right,” he finally said. “Do what you have to do. Just b...ful... back t…”

“Takashi?” 

“...ference, can you h…”

Shit. “Lance? Can you hear me?”

“Adam? Yeah, Ruvak’s on foot just like you said, I’m--”

Well, at least  _ that  _ worked. Adam let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, great, but I’m gonna need you to stay where you are until I get there.”

“But he’s--”

“Lance,  _ please don’t argue with me on this!” Okay,  _ he thought,  _ remember where we parked last time?  _ Black-2 sent back some acknowledgement and started scanning for a plot of solid ground that would support its weight. “Do  _ not  _ go in after him without me!”

Black-2 nudged Adam’s mind, and he looked up at the display. There was Red, perched on a solid-looking outcropping of rock with enough room for Black-2 if they didn’t mind getting cozy. Black-2 assured him it did not mind getting cozy, especially if the alternative was a swim in molten lava.

By the time Adam caught sight of Lance he was already into the caves, too far ahead, way too far ahead and if Adam didn’t get to him in time--”Lance,  _ wait!  _ Don’t go charging in there, Ruvak’s got the place--” He had to catch up, but he had to be careful where he stepped, if Lance had gotten this far he was either lucky or there just weren’t any--he pulled up the scanner Matt had set up the first time and nothing showed up but still… He tried night vision and hoped like hell that if there  _ were  _ any of those things in here, they were sticking up out of the dirt enough for him to see that little tiny fucking  _ light-- _

“I saw him!” Lance called back, pointing down the sloping path of the cave. “He’s heading down that way!”

_ “Lance!” _ There! Right there, right in front of him and he didn’t see it, hell, if Adam didn’t already know what kind of shit Ruvak liked to pull and didn’t already know what to look for  _ he _ never would have seen it either but there it was--“FREEZE!  _ Do NOT put your foot down!” _

There must have been something in Adam’s voice that finally tripped the  _ he’s not kidding  _ alarm in Lance’s brain because he stopped right where he was, left foot hovering inches over the loose dirt. 

Adam could call his shield up to cover something as far away as Lance was, he didn’t doubt that--he could throw it in front of Lance and use it to yank him back, away from the little blinking light under his foot, but… if that startled him--if he lost his balance and put that foot down--

_Not again,_ Adam thought. _Not again. Please,_ _not fucking this again._

“Don’t move, Lance. Do  _ not  _ move until I tell you.” Adam said, trying to keep his voice steady, trying to keep his focus on the present instead of gazing into the flashback abyss that the cold slimy thing in his chest was trying its damndest to drag him down. “I need you to do  _ exactly  _ as I say, okay? When I say ‘go,’ plant that foot you’ve got in the air  _ behind _ you. Understand?” 

“Okay,” Lance said.

Adam took a deep breath. “Go.”

Lance very carefully pulled his foot back and set it down in the dirt behind him, and Adam let that breath out. 

“Good. Take another step back. Go ahead. Then  _ do not touch,  _ but look at what you almost stepped on.”

Lance didn’t argue, didn’t complain. He did what he was told without a single word--no questions, no smartass remarks, nothing. He took that step back and he looked down, down where his foot almost landed, down into the loose dirt and the tiny,  _ tiny _ blinking red light peeking out of it. 

“...the hell is  _ that?” _ He crouched down to get a better look. ”Is that...some kind of switch or something?”

“It’s a landmine,” Adam said. His throat was so dry he imagined it cracking like old paint every time he swallowed. 

“That doesn’t sound… well, it doesn’t sound  _ good,  _ but… “ Lance looked over his shoulder at Adam and raised an eyebrow.  _ “ _ That’s like, the size of a walnut. How much explosive could a  _ walnut _ hold?”

“The right explosive? More than enough,” Adam said. “Ever heard of heximite?”

Adam could just about  _ hear  _ the blood drain from Lance’s face. That would be a yes.

“Is that how I…” Lance swallowed hard and looked back down at the tiny landmine with its sinister little light blinking away in the dirt. “I stepped on one of those, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” No sense lying to him. “You were--there’s a path through them but you were trying to take a shortcut and jump over instead, and...”

_ “Fuck.”  _ And then Lance seemed to remember who he was with. “ ...uh! I mean, uh. ‘Scuse my language… sir?” 

“Really?” Adam couldn’t help but laugh. “We’re on a volcanic moon, chasing a dangerous purple  _ asshole  _ through a dark cave system full of heximite landmines, I just told you exactly how you died in an alternate reality, you just came about six inches from it happening in  _ this  _ one _ ,  _ and you’re really afraid I’m going to write you up for  _ saying the fuck word _ right now. That’s adorable. I can’t wait to tell your sister.” He gently pulled Lance back, away from the little blinking light, and pulled up his armor’s wrist display. “And here I was watching  _ my  _ language for  _ your  _ benefit. Stay right there, don’t go wandering around until we can see where it’s safe to wander.” He crouched down and frowned at the display. “Huh, these must be a little different, Matt had us all set up with whatever it was we needed to scan for but it’s not showing up…” 

“Could we just stand back and blow ‘em up ahead of us?”

“Ahaha.  _ No.”  _ Adam tapped on his display for a minute. He knew a little about this sort of stuff, and he figured he could at least scan and sort of analyze the thing well enough to figure out how to keep him and Lance safe in here, but… “These things are  _ nasty  _ and knowing Ruvak they’re packed close enough together that blowing one up’ll set off a really ugly chain reaction.”  _ Like the one you stepped on,  _ Adam thought but didn’t say,  _ if you hadn’t been so far ahead  _ none  _ of us would have made it out.. _ . “Better to just avoid them… okay, this might take a minute.”

“Great, but he’s gonna get away.”

“Where’s he going to get away  _ to? _ Cave system. Volcanic moon. And he’s headed  _ down.” _ Adam reached back with his free hand and gently bopped Lance on the shoulder. “Trust me. The worst thing you could do right now is take off running in here.”

“Yyyyyyyeah. Point taken.” Lance sat down in the dirt behind Adam. “This is really freaking you out. Like… actual PTSD kind of freaking you out.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a dig at him, either. It was genuine concern.

“Yeah.” No sense in lying about that, either. “Big-time.” 

“I can tell.” Lance was quiet for a minute. “Shiro’s like that too sometimes. He thinks we don’t notice but… I do, and if I do I  _ know  _ Keith does, and...” He shook his head. “Don’t… don’t tell him I said anything about that.”

“I won’t.” Adam shook his head. “I’m holding it together right now because I  _ have  _ to but… yeah, once you and I are both safe on the  _ Atlas  _ I’m probably going to just lock myself in my cabin and…I don’t know, scream into a pillow for a while or something.” He snorted out a wry little laugh. “Don’t tell Takashi I said anything about  _ that.” _

“Don’t worry. Won’t say a word. So in the meantime… how about I just not do any of the dumb shit I did on your side?” Lance said, and Adam cracked a little bit of a smile. “I went charging in ahead of everyone, I guess?”

“Yeah. Don’t do that.”

_ “Definitely _ won’t do that. What kinda bayard did I have?”

“The sword,” Adam replied. Almost done. “You pretty much always had the sword out first and then switched if you needed to, at that point.”

“‘Kay.” Lance called his bayard--the gun. “Would it help if  _ you _ take point, and let me watch your back?”

“Yeah.” Adam let out a breath. “Yeah, it actually would.” His display pinged. “Oh hey, here we go… yep. The casing’s a slightly different material, so let’s scan for  _ that _ ...” Adam took a careful look around, just to make sure with his own two eyes that the mines were where his scanner said they were and weren’t where it said they weren’t. “Okay. Let me send this to you… there you go, pull that up in your HUD.”

“Got it. ...oh  _ shit,”  _ Lance stammered. “They’re all over the place!”

“Yeah, but there’s a path, see? If we stay on it we’ll be fine.” Adam grabbed Lance by the upper arm and locked eyes with him. “Stay. On. The path. Absolutely  _ no  _ shortcuts. Do you understand me?”

“No shortcuts.” Lance nodded and readied his bayard. “Got it. Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

They navigated that part of the caves in silence, and Adam figured that was probably for the best--it meant that Lance was concentrating on putting his feet where it was safe to put them. 

But then the loose dirt gave way to hard stone. Nowhere to bury a landmine here. And none showing up on the scanner. Now they could maybe relax a little, after Adam adjusted his visor to check for the presence of invisible trip beams or hidden cameras or drones or other such nastiness. He did find a series of trip beams. The obvious ones, visible to the naked eye, were harmless decoys. But they were positioned such that someone stepping over or ducking under them would hit the invisible  _ real _ beams, which would set off some unpleasant surprise or another, Adam didn’t know what and didn’t want to find out. Fortunately, he knew what to scan for and wasn’t fooled, and he showed Lance the trick so  _ he  _ could avoid them. 

Really, from here on, any boobytrapping would likely be an easily-detected and easily-avoided-or-disabled afterthought--Ruvak wouldn’t expect anyone to make it past the minefield, and by this point even  _ he _ would be tired of tiptoeing through his own traps. No, if he  _ did  _ have any more really nasty traps in wait, they’d be in his hideout proper.

As good as it was that Lance kept his mind on the task at hand in the minefield, the silence was agonizing. And as soon as Adam was sure they were relatively safe, he scoped out a big flat rock that would make a nice seat and waved Lance over to it. “C’mere,” he said. “Pull up a boulder and take five.”

“But Ruvak’s--”

“I know. But he’s not going to bail on us. He’s probably counting on us getting ourselves blown up back there. And getting through that minefield was a solid hour or so of some pretty high-pressure shit and it’ll do us good to decompress for a minute.”

Lance thought that over for a second. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess you’re right.” He parked himself on the other end of the rock. 

“Can I ask you something?” Adam cleared his throat. “And if it’s none of my business, feel free to say so but… are you and Keith, uh… together?”

Lance, oddly enough, didn’t say anything to that. Not for a long time. Way too long. He didn’t seem all that taken aback by the question, either.

“I… I really like Allura,” he finally said, in a tone that left something small and strange hanging unspoken off the end of it. 

Well,  _ that  _ sure wasn’t the answer Adam was expecting. “I’m detecting a ‘but’ there,” he said softly.

Lance opened his mouth and closed it again a couple of times, like he was trying to figure out how to say whatever he was kicking around in his head. “I mean… I couldn’t… I had to pick one, right? And I really like Allura, and Keith’s… I don’t know if he’s even... I can’t like  _ both  _ of them anyway, can I?”

Oh God. That poor kid.

“Maybe?” Adam shrugged, and Lance’s eyes went wide. “I mean… that’s a thing, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and it’s definitely something you need to talk to them about. ...uh, probably not both of them at the same time until you’ve said something to them separately, but...”

“I was afraid you were gonna say that.” Lance huffed out a sigh. “I tried to tell him a couple times but… it comes out all wrong. I couldn’t even tell  _ Allura  _ I liked her--I mean, actually tell her I like her like a normal person, it’s like--” he threw up his hands. “I get it all planned out in my head and then I go to actually say it and it just… all turns into stupid pickup lines and stuff. And then I get embarrassed and I say  _ more  _ stupid stuff. And with Keith it’s even worse, I can’t even do the pickup lines on him, it all just comes out like I’m trying to  _ dunk on him _ or something and--” He dropped his head onto his knees. “This stuff is  _ hard.” _

Adam thought about all the events that had led up to Lance stepping on that landmine in his reality, thought about the way Lance had reacted when Keith died, thought about that weird rivalry thing Lance was always trying to stir up between them and how exasperated he’d get when Keith didn’t bite, and… 

It should have been obvious… right?

Looking back on it, it should have been obvious.

“Yeah,” Adam finally said, “it  _ is  _ hard, especially when you’re young, but don’t overthink this. Just… say it. If you can’t say it, write it. You have phones. You can  _ text  _ them. The worst that can happen if you tell them is, they’ll say no. And yeah, ‘no’ can feel like the end of the world but…” He reached over and clapped Lance on the back of the shoulder. “If you don’t tell them how you feel and something bad happens… you don’t want that kind of regret hanging around your neck, trust me.”

Lance chewed that over for a while. “Why does everyone think me and Keith are already a thing, anyway?”

“Can’t speak for anyone else but…” Adam shrugged. “I’ve watched you two have whole conversations without actually saying a single word out loud. Honestly, I figured you were already texting each other pictures of rings and shit, I wasn’t expecting  _ this _ .” He stood up and brushed dirt off his hands. “Ready to move on?”

“Yeah,” Lance said, hopping to his feet as well. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How did you and Shiro get together, anyway?”

“Dunno if it was the same on this side but…” Adam checked around the bend for nasty surprises and found another set of decoy and real beams. “Got some more trip beams here.” 

“I see ‘em. The red ones are the fakes, right?”

“Right. Anyway… we were training partners all through the academy and we just kind of… fit together. I think we both knew it pretty early on, but we didn’t actually say it, much less  _ do _ anything about it until we were… well, about your age, I guess.” The path took a sharp curve to the right ahead, and Adam held up a hand-- _ wait.  _ He went ahead and took a careful look around the corner. Nothing there they needed to worry much about, not even trip beams, so he waved Lance up again.

“No guards or drones or anything,” Lance said, though Adam noticed he wasn’t exactly lowering his guard. “This is  _ creepy.” _

“He doesn’t like them,” Adam said. “Doesn’t trust anything that has to  _ think  _ to work. He’d rather rely on traps.” He scanned a little farther ahead. Still nothing. “So… we moved in together right after we graduated, got married a couple months before the Kerberos mission. Just the quick version at the chaplain’s office, we were going to have the actual  _ wedding  _ when he got back, we just wanted to make it official and all in case…” He shook his head. “In case something went wrong. And, well… something went wrong, is all I’m going to say about that.” 

Lance didn’t press for details. He could tell this was edging into uncomfortable territory.

“I’ve… got a lot of regrets about stuff that happened in my reality,” Adam went on. “But I’m glad I married him. Even if it was just a couple months… that’s one of the few things I  _ don’t  _ regret. I’d do it again.” He laughed softly. “Might even get the chance to, who knows.” There was light ahead--light and  _ heat,  _ it was getting steadily warmer the further down they went, at least some of that light had to be magma but there was a bit of a cool undertone to it. Artificial light. “‘Kay. I think we might be coming up on Ruvak’s hideout so let’s cut the chatter and stay sharp.”

 

* * *

 

“Look,” Rizavi said, “he’s got his Lion. We’ve got Altean tech fighters. I’m just saying, _ it could happen.” _

“It’ll never happen!” Griffin snapped back. “Ina, tell her she’s nuts!”

“In her defense nobody knew the  _ Atlas  _ could turn into a giant robot until it  _ did  _ so... “ Leifsdottir shrugged. ”I kind of… can’t tell her that.”

“See, that’s what I’m saying. I’m gonna be a leg.” Rizavi beamed at her and nudged Kinkade’s arm. “So are you.”

He shot her an epic side-eye. “You didn’t  _ really  _ already figure all this out,” he said.

“Sure I did. It’s obvious. Ina’s the smartest one, so she’s going to be the left arm. You’re gonna be the left leg. I’m gonna be the right leg, and James is gonna be the right arm.” She leaned back, looking way too proud of herself for figuring this all out.

Griffin threw up his hands. “Why do you think I’m gonna be an arm!?”

“As opposed to…?”

“I mean, _if_ this happened, which it won’t... why wouldn’t I be the _head!?”_

“Because  _ Commander Wolf _ is gonna be the head?” Rizavi shrugged. “I mean… he’s got a Black Lion? That’s the head? That’s how this  _ works?” _

“Oh, that’s  _ bullshit!  _ How come  _ Keith  _ gets to be a head and I have to be an  _ ARM!?” _

Kinkade quirked an eyebrow at him. “You’re getting pretty worked up over something that’ll never happen…”

 

* * *

 

Disadvantage: there was only one way into the cavern Ruvak had fled into, at least only one way that Adam and Lance could reach from where they were.

Advantage: the center of the cavern was brightly lit, but the edges were dark. Ruvak had sharp eyes, Adam knew that, but if he stayed under the lights and they stayed along the edges, that would make it harder for him to spot any intruders. Especially if they moved slowly and either stayed low as Adam did or went high as Lance did when he found some handholds he could use to shimmy up onto a dark walkway that circled the cavern.

Security would be light-to-nonexistent, likely consisting only of whoever--if  _ anyone-- _ Ruvak had working with him. Traps? Probably none, Ruvak wouldn’t want to have to dodge them in his own lair. And this surely  _ was  _ his lair, because there in the middle, under the bright lights…

“Shit,” Lance whispered in Adam’s helmet. “That’s a  _ Sincline ship.” _

It was. A very unfinished one. Not even remotely spaceworthy. It probably didn’t even have a propulsion system yet. Or any kind of power source. Still… 

Adam didn’t remember Ruvak working on anything like this on his side but he supposed it made sense. He  _ was  _ a Lotor fanboy, after all. “Looks like it,” he whispered back. “I doubt we’re going to be able to leave with this thing so just in case--you’ve got a good vantage point, can you get some pictures?”

“On it.” 

Adam crept closer, trying to keep Ruvak’s back facing him all the while. 

Was this thing a real Sincline--or, more precisely, a third of one? Had Ruvak actually managed to get hold of enough comet to put one together? Adam wasn’t sure. It was hard to tell exactly what this thing was made of, and he hadn’t exactly gotten a close-up look at Lotor’s, but… it didn’t look like it. It looked like a knockoff. Maybe it was  _ partly  _ made of comet bits, but then again... 

Zarkon’s mech didn’t have any trans-reality comet bits in it and he still trashed Adam’s entire universe, didn’t he?

Even a cheap comet-free knockoff Sincline could be bad news, and there was the matter of that hunk of comet Ruvak had gotten hold of on Vara-3...

“Hey. Here.” Lance sent something over. “Figured while I was up here I could scan the place and get you a layout. There’s a launch shaft, but it’s closed off. And an elevator, looks like it goes all the way to the surface but I’m not sure.”

“Hey, good work.” Adam pulled it up. Yeah, chances were that elevator did go all the way to the surface. Which was… puzzling. “Wait. Something’s not right.”

Why would Ruvak just walk in the front door through a minefield when he had an easy way down? 

Because he wanted to be  _ seen  _ walking in the front door, of course. Because he knew he was being followed. 

The minefield was pretty far away and above, but… a chain reaction of heximite landmines going off? Even if Ruvak didn’t have any kind of cameras or anything, there’d be enough of a rumble that he’d hear it, even this far down. There’d be some vibration. 

Ruvak would be waiting for it. And when it didn’t come he’d do the math...

_ Fuck. _

“He knows we made it through the minefield,” Adam whispered. Think. Weaknesses. Strengths to turn against him.  _ Think _ . “Stay where you are. You’ve got a sniper rifle, right?”

“Yeah.”

What weapon did Ruvak favor? Double daggers, if Adam remembered correctly. Not much range, but he had a significant height advantage and he was agile enough to not need much range anyway. His vision was sharp as hell. He was  _ smart.  _ He fought dirty. “If you get a shot... _ take it.”  _ Had that rest stop thrown Ruvak’s calculated ETA off? If so… in whose favor? 

Did he expect them to be able to scan the minefield and find the path that way, or did he count on them just looking for his footprints?

Ruvak’s back was still turned.

“No good here, I gotta find a better spot.”

“Do what you gotta do. Be careful.” 

It could be a trap. Or this might be the last chance Adam would have to catch him off guard.

He bet on the latter, stood up silently, and readied his bayard. It’d have to be the sword this time. Too tight to maneuver behind his cover, too much risk of knocking shit over with six feet of quarterstaff-shaped bayard and tipping Ruvak off to his exact whereabouts sooner than he wanted. 

He fired his jetpack straight up. Ruvak turned around, turned to face the source of the sudden noise, found nothing there. Adam was counting on him looking side to side first, not up. He wasn’t disappointed.

If Ruvak had been any slower, Adam’s sword would have gone through his skull. But he fell and rolled backwards, out of the way, and Adam caught nothing but air.

_ Shit.  _

Ruvak came up in a crouch and peered over the rims of the dark glasses he wore to protect his keen eyes in the bright light, and a toothy grin spread across his gaunt face. “Well,  _ look who it is _ ,” he purred, pulling his daggers. “The Black Paladin of Voltron. Been a while since we’ve seen  _ you  _ about, you’ve been hiding behind that little  _ halfbreed _ , haven’t you? Shame on you, sending a little boy out to do your dirty work for you...”

Was Ruvak just… not good with faces or had he not looked up quite that far? For that matter… he did know Lotor was a  _ halfbreed,  _ right?

“I think you’ve got me confused with someone else,” Adam said. And he shot Ruvak a toothy grin right back. “But that guy you’re talking shit about?”

Ruvak did look up then. No, he was good enough with faces to know this wasn’t the one he was expecting.

_ “That’s my husband,”  _ Adam snarled, and he swung for Ruvak’s throat.

Ruvak was fast, and he recovered quickly, parrying Adam’s sword away with his daggers and striking back before Adam could swing again. Adam called his shield and ducked behind it; Ruvak tucked and rolled, coming up behind him. He was almost too fast, and Adam barely got his shield where it needed to be in time. 

Adam was quick, but Ruvak was quicker and the only thing saving his skin right now was the past experience he had fighting this bastard. How had he beaten Ruvak last time? 

Pure fucking  _ luck. _

This was why Adam hated winning with lucky shots--if the guy got away and you ended up having to fight him again, you couldn’t strategize based on luck. 

“Who  _ are  _ you?” Ruvak rolled back, out from under Adam’s sword, and came back up with a strange little grin. “Have we met before?”

“No,” Adam swung low, trying to maybe hobble Ruvak and catching nothing but air again. “Not in  _ this _ universe.”

_ Think, goddammit! _

“Sorry, Adam--” Lance was a little out of breath. “I’m trying to get a shot but… he’s too fast and you’re in the way--”

“Keep at it,” Adam wheezed, rolling out from under a double-dagger thrust and coming up swinging. “I’ll do what I can down here.” What about the environment? What kind of hazards could he exploit here? Power tools? Tall stacks of cargo containers? The unfinished Sincline ship itself? 

He wished he could see Lance, but at the same time he was glad he couldn’t because that meant Ruvak probably couldn’t either--

_ The lights! _

Those dark glasses… yes, Ruvak had exceptionally sharp eyes but that could be a double-edged sword, couldn’t it? It might not do much but stun him, but that could be enough… where was that orange glow coming from, anyway? Obviously it was magma, this place felt like a fucking  _ oven _ , but where? 

Ruvak jabbed with one dagger and Adam swatted it away with his shield. That wasn’t the one he needed to watch out for, though--its partner came behind it, and Adam was ready for it. “Lance, there’s a shitload of magma in here somewhere but I can’t tell where from here, can you see it?” He feinted left, swung with his sword, and barely caught Ruvak across the shoulder. 

It was a shallow cut, but it must have hurt--Ruvak hissed and dropped his guard for one precious second, and Adam followed it with his shield right into Ruvak’s face.

The impact would do little but stun Ruvak for a second or two, but it knocked his dark glasses off. They skittered across the floor, under the unfinished Sincline ship. Well-hidden. Ruvak wouldn’t be able to look for them without giving Adam plenty of time to take him out. But he was already shaking it off, already going for his daggers again.

“Yeah,” Lance came back, “On your right, see the walkway up there?”

Adam ducked down behind his shield as Ruvak came at him again, and cast a quick glance up. “Got it.”

“Under that. Looks like some kind of… I don’t know but there’s a grate over it…”

_ Shit.  _ There was no way Adam was going to be able to figure out how to open it (or even just  _ cut  _ it open) without turning his back on Ruvak. Even taking his eyes off his opponent for the time it took to see if he could locate an obvious switch left him open long enough for one of Ruvak’s daggers to find that fundamental design flaw in the Paladins’ armor. It wasn’t a deep cut, Adam managed to adjust his angle at the last second to keep that blade away from any important squishy bits, but it still sliced through Adam’s undersuit and left him bleeding. 

There wasn’t time to look for a switch or cut the grate open. Adam was going to have to keep Ruvak’s attention on him so  _ Lance  _ could.

“Okay,” Adam panted, “I don’t like asking you to do this but I’m not seeing any other options so… I’m going to buy you some time. Get it open however you have to.” That cut probably wasn’t life-threatening, but it was deep enough to bleed a lot more than he liked and it was definitely deep enough to sting like hell. At least it was a clean enough cut that his suit was already repairing itself over it, and that wouldn’t stop the bleeding but it’d at least control it to some degree. Still… if they didn’t do something about this asshole and soon, that cut would be the least of his worries.

He needed to get his back to the grate and he needed to piss Ruvak off. There was room for the staff here, and the range would help and so would the stun pads, but… not yet. 

“Can’t find a switch from here,” Lance said, “I don’t think--oh,  _ screw it,  _ hang on--”

Oh, Adam did not like the sound of that but what could he do about it now?

He heard a metallic _clang_ behind him, boots on the grate, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Ruvak. “Hi!” came Lance’s voice from the same direction. “Sorry, not trying to interrupt, just need to do a little something here real quick--” 

“Lance, what the fuck are you doing!?” Adam’s blood ran cold and he fought as hard as he could to keep it off his face, to keep Ruvak’s attention on  _ him.  _

There was a sound of metal cutting through metal. “Getting your grate open.” And then the sound of a jetpack firing.

“What--” Ruvak spun around, trying to follow the sound of a jetpack up and over his head, but that required him to squint straight up into the bright lights overhead. “Wh--ahh,  _ where did you go--” _

Adam swung the sword and caught just enough of the back of Ruvak’s shoulder to get his attention, but Adam was counting on that. “C’mon. Don’t forget  _ me.”  _ He jumped back out of dagger range as Lance disappeared back into the darkness at the edges of the cavern, and Ruvak took the bait. “I haven’t forgotten about you.” He jumped again, and Ruvak followed him again, with a wild slash at the air. He was aiming at the sound of Adam’s voice. “I  _ never  _ forgot you.”

“Hold  _ still!”  _ Oh, he was getting mad, wasn’t he? 

_ “Make me,”  _ Adam growled back. One more jump back, maybe two? He could feel the heat of the magma rising from the shaft that grate was covering now, even through his armor he felt like he had his back right up against a bonfire. “Come on,  _ come at me, you son of a bitch--” _

Ruvak screeched in rage and followed one last time. Right where Adam wanted him. 

If Ruvak hadn’t still been blinking stars out of his eyes, this might not have worked. But he was still dazzled enough not to notice the change in Adam’s bayard until it was too late, and that last jump forward brought his midsection right onto the end of six feet of quarterstaff-shaped bayard and right onto the fully armed stun pad on the end of it. Adam caught him low enough that he just sort of folded forward over the end of the staff, and that was exactly what Adam wanted him to do.

He scooped Ruvak up over his head, flung him onto the grate, and hoped like hell he landed on whatever part Lance just sliced open.

He almost did. Ruvak clung to the edge of the hole in the grate with one hand, the other still gripping Adam’s bayard, well clear of the stun pad. His legs and hips hung over the edge, over a long sheer drop into the magma below.

Ruvak flashed Adam that wide, toothy grin and  _ yanked,  _ catching Adam off guard and dragging him close enough to the hole in the grate to catch his wrist, dragging him to the edge of the hole, dragging his head and torso  _ over  _ the edge. Adam dismissed his bayard, but the damage was done. 

_ Fuck.  _ Ruvak knew he was going down, and he intended to take Adam with him, if he tried to fire his jetpack to get out of this mess he’d likely just fire himself straight down--

“Adam!  _ FREEZE!” _

Adam did. 

And then--Adam wasn’t sure what exactly happened. There was a soft little  _ thwp!  _ sound from what he guessed was the vicinity of Ruvak’s head, and Ruvak’s grip on Adam’s wrist tightened painfully for a fraction of a second--then released, and so did his grip on the grate.

Adam heard boots hit the ground near him, felt hands grab his ankles and _ pull  _ as Ruvak slipped over the edge of the grate, into the magma below. “I got you,” Lance said in his helmet, “I got you--”

Once Adam was clear enough to get his hands on the grate again he pushed back and just sort of fell away from the hole over the magma. Lance helped him to his feet and he hissed as the motion pulled at his injured side. “Thanks,” he wheezed. “Looks like he was the only one home, let’s see how much data we can grab and then get the hell out of--”

The floor shook under their feet. An alarm klaxon started blaring, and a synthesized voice began to speak, saying something in what sounded like Galra language--something that sounded ominously like a countdown.

Ah,  _ fuck. _

Ruvak loved his boobytraps, loved fighting dirty and, well… 

Adam should have seen this coming, right? 

A self-destruct sequence triggered by his own death was about as dirty a boobytrap as it got, wasn’t it?

“Change of plans. Screw the data, we gotta go,” he said to Lance. “Where’s that elevator?”

“This way--aw  _ shit,  _ that’s really coming up fast _ \--”  _

The magma under the grate hadn’t been that high a second ago, had it? It would have taken Adam’s face off if he’d been that close to it, Paladin armor or no. No, it definitely wasn’t that high before and it was still rising...

Adam grabbed Lance by the arm and took off running in the direction of the elevator shaft. How far underground were they? How fast was that elevator? How fast was that magma rising? 

Too far, not fast enough, and  _ way _ too fucking fast, Adam guessed.

The magma kept rising under the grated floor, little bloops and blurps starting to pop up through the grate and then it crested, swallowing the grate entirely, flowing out over the floor, licking at the unfinished Sincline ship, and it just kept coming and coming, faster and faster…

Adam shoved Lance into the elevator, followed him in, and smashed the panel to take them up. 

The elevator wasn’t going fast enough. Once that magma found this shaft, the pressure would force it up even faster, they’d be incinerated before they came anywhere near the surface… “This isn’t going to work,” Adam said, “We can’t outrun that shit in this elevator.” Lance didn’t wait to be told--he pulled his sword and cut the top of the elevator off like he was opening a can of beans from the inside. But now the magma was rising up the elevator shaft, gaining on the elevator, through the grated floor Adam watched it close the gap with terrifying speed. Even their jetpacks weren’t going to be fast enough to get them out of this.

Adam thought about his shield, thought about that feeling he got the first time he called it, the impression that it could do so much  _ more _ …

“Lance,  _ hang on to me!”  _

Adam threw both arms around Lance’s shoulders and Lance hung on tight as Adam called up his shield, reaching as deep as he could into that untapped potential just as the magma swallowed the floor of the elevator and kept racing up the shaft, faster and faster, sweeping Adam and Lance and the protective blue-white bubble encasing them up with it. 

Adam wasn’t sure how long he could hold his shield like this--a small shield that would protect him from a melee weapon was one thing, but a sealed bubble that had to protect two people from tons and tons of pressurized magma… he could feel the heat even through the shield, could feel his fingers, then his palm, then his wrist tingling and then going numb as the shield drained the power crystal in his arm and he knew this was going to be close.

“Hit your jetpack the second I let go of you,” he told Lance. “And tell Red you’re going to need a pickup.” Lance just nodded and held on for dear life, and Adam shut his eyes.  _ You caught that, right, Black? _

He could feel Black-2’s acknowledgement and that gave him a little more strength, just enough to keep the shield up as they smashed through the elevator station on the surface, propelled by thousands of tons of molten rock behind them. Lance didn’t need to be told--the instant the shield dropped and Adam let him go he fired his jetpack and put as much distance between himself and the geyser of magma as he could. Adam did likewise in the opposite direction, and Black-2 was there to scoop him up.

The first thing he did when his butt hit the pilot seat was make sure he had eyes on Red. There it was, falling in next to Black-2. “You okay, Lance?”

“Holy shit,” Lance wheezed. “Holy  _ shit!  _ That was--yeah. I’m okay. How about you?”

Adam’s arm felt sluggish and clumsy and it throbbed with a dull ache--he’d damn near run his power crystal flat, but being back in his Lion would help with that. His undersuit was soaked with blood from the cut on his side. He’d definitely need a trip to the med bay. And despite everything, Adam couldn’t help but splutter out a little laugh at that. “Eh. Been worse.” His fingers started to tingle as the power crystal recharged.  _ “Atlas,  _ this is Black-2, do you read me?”

Silence. Right… they had to get clear of the interference, that’s all, just had to put enough distance between themselves and this hell moon to clear the channel, was all. 

Adam waited a minute and tried again. “ _ Atlas,  _ this is Black-2, can you--”

“We read you, Black-2.” Takashi replied, and  _ God _ Adam had never been so glad to hear his voice. “What’s your status?”

“We’re coming home. Lance is okay, I’m okay.” He swallowed, wincing at the painfully dry click in his throat. “Ruvak’s not. We didn’t have time to get much of his data or anything but--he had a Sincline ship in there. A  _ new  _ one. Unfinished, and this one’s probably going to stay that way unless someone wants to come fish it out of a magma-filled chamber in a cave system ate up with boobytraps but… that’s not good.”

“No, it’s not.” Takashi said. “But we’ll talk when you get back.” And if there was maybe a little shake in his voice, nobody mentioned it.

“Roger that. I’m gonna need to swing by the med bay soon as I get back. Nothing too serious,” he added before Takashi could say anything. “I’ll see you when I get out of debrief.” He closed the channel.

“Can you find the  _ Atlas  _ on your own, or just… follow Red?” Adam asked Black-2, and he got an affirmative back. “Good. I--I need to--” He took off his helmet with shaking hands and set it on the floor next to the pilot seat. 

_ I need a minute,  _ he thought because the words wouldn’t come out of his throat, and he pulled his feet up into the seat and wrapped his arms around his knees and broke down sobbing.

It was different from the night after he woke up in that cryopod. That night, he’d only stopped crying because it took so much out of him he didn’t have enough energy left to cry anymore. It felt like he’d been trying to purge an an entire universe’s worth of grief from his heart all at once, and it was just too big to get it out.

This felt a little like that, but at the same time it felt… it felt like a release. It felt good, somehow. Cleansing. Like a shower that was just a little too hot to be comfortable or the sting of antiseptic spray on a fresh cut. That universe’s worth of grief was still inside him, but maybe… maybe this time he’d broken a manageable chunk of it off, a piece small enough to process.

Adam knew that what happened in his reality happened, and it could never be undone. But they’d kept it from happening in  _ this  _ one, at least. In  _ this  _ reality, Lance came out of Ruvak’s hideout alive. And maybe, Adam thought, that was the next best thing. 

He felt Black-2 touch his mind, felt something huge and warm curl protectively around him, heard it make little soothing noises in his head.

_ Thanks, Black,  _ he thought, and he heard the reply in his own voice: 

_ We’ve still got each other. No matter what. _

 

* * *

 

Lance beat him back by a few minutes, partly just because Red was faster, partly because Black-2 might have done Adam the small favor of flying a little slower than it normally would, to give him time to get himself together before he stepped out into the hangar. 

Lance looked tired as hell but otherwise okay; he gave Adam a wave and then let Allura sweep him into a big hug while Keith, Hunk, and Pidge waited off to the side.

“Commander Wolf!” Rizavi waved at Adam as he headed for the med bay, limping a little, right hand pressed tight against his side. “Tell Griffin he has to be an arm!”

Adam just gave her a blank stare. Those were English words, arranged according to the rules of English grammar as far as he could tell, but... “What.”

“Rizavi thinks she’s going to be a leg,” Leifsdottir told him.

“Cool.” Adam nodded slowly. “This sounds fascinating but  _ I’m bleeding and I need to not be. _ Can we do ...whatever this is later?”

 

* * *

 

Another ten-minute cryopod nap took care of Adam’s cut--it was deep and it hurt and it bled like crazy, but it was a clean cut and it hadn’t hit anything major. 

Later, Adam wouldn’t remember two words of what he said in debrief. He wasn’t even sure  _ he  _ was speaking English or any other actual language by that point. Good thing Lance had those pictures and he had helmet-cam footage. 

But when he came out, Takashi was there waiting for him, and he would  _ always  _ remember that and what happened next.

“Need to see you in my office,” he said in a strange tone of voice, like he was trying to sound stern but not really, like he was just putting it on for the benefit of any casual passersby. And that room he led Adam into was nowhere near his office.

But Adam nodded and followed him in anyway, and the second the door closed Takashi just grabbed him and folded him into the biggest, warmest full-body hug he’d ever had. Maybe Takashi was a couple inches shorter than he was, but he was  _ strong,  _ and the arms wrapped around Adam felt like a suit of armor that could protect him from anything. 

For the first time since he’d left for Kerberos, Adam felt truly safe. He felt like he was  _ home. _

“You okay?” Takashi asked, and Adam nodded. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m okay. Just…” Adam snuggled his face into the side of Takashi’s neck and shut his eyes. “It’s been a hell of a day, y’know?” His voice cracked a little, and Takashi held him tighter. He tried not to think too much about  _ why  _ Takashi felt the need to hold him like this, and he tried to just relax into it for now. “But I’m okay. It’s just... leftover adrenaline, I guess.”

Takashi kissed the side of his head, and Adam realized he wasn’t the only one that was shaking--with Takashi pressed this close against him, Adam could feel it in his stomach, in his arms, in the small of his back. “I owe you an apology,” he finally said, “I guess I.. probably scared the shit out of you out there, with the… and the punching out and… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Takashi said. A long silence… then a shaky little laugh. “Yeah, I, uh… you kinda had me worried for a while there.”

Which was probably the understatement of the century, but Adam wasn’t going to call him on it right now.

It had been a hell of a day for  _ both  _ of them, hadn’t it?

Adam just stood there for a while with his arms around Takashi’s waist, rubbing his back, letting the warmth of his body and the faint scent of his aftershave bring him back to center.

“Think I’m going to go to the training deck for a little while and burn this off once you let go of me,” Adam finally said. “Not that I really want you to let go of me, just saying.”

Takashi breathed out a soft, warm little laugh into his shoulder. “Yeah, probably a good idea. I’ve, uh… I’ve got some loose ends to tie up here so… I’ll catch up with you in a couple hours?”

 

* * *

 

Adam was okay. He’d flown, he’d fought, he’d brought Lance back safe, he brought back some valuable--if fairly disturbing--intel, and he was okay.

_ He was okay. _

Shiro told himself that, and told himself again, and  _ again,  _ and as many times as he could all the way back to his cabin.

Adam wasn’t back in his yet--still on the training deck, burning off his leftover fight-or-flight. Good. Good, because that would help him rest. 

Also good because it meant he wasn’t on the other side of the bathroom between their cabins right now. Because the panic Shiro had been holding at bay through this whole Godawful mission was finally catching up to him, and he did  _ not  _ want Adam to know just how terrified he’d really been.

 

* * *

 

Adam came dragging back to his cabin an hour or so later--when that adrenaline cut off, boy, it  _ really  _ cut off and he’d seriously considered just crashing on a weight bench.

He was half-asleep and barely heard it--three soft little taps on the bathroom door. He hadn’t heard that little secret knock since his academy days. But he still knew what it meant. He got up and unlocked the bathroom door--and why did he even bother locking it, anyway? 

“It’s after lights-out,” he stage-whispered as he opened the door, and Takashi laughed. “Hope the captain doesn’t catch us.”

“Yeah,” Takashi stage-whispered back. “I hear he’s a real hardass.”

Adam opened his mouth… then shook his head and closed it again. “Borderline inappropriate,” he said, and they both cracked up.

There wasn’t a couch for them to cuddle on in these tight little rooms and the beds were barely big enough for one guy Adam or Takashi’s size, never mind both of them, but they made it work. 

And even as small as it was, the bed really was more comfortable than the couch, maybe Takashi could move his TV to the bedroom and… well, that was a discussion they’d have to have when they got back to Earth. 

“I gotta get up at 0500,” Takashi whispered into the top of Adam’s head a little while later. “What about you?”

Adam thought about that for a little while. “Think I’m gonna sleep in if that’s okay,” he finally said. “Gonna go see Black and then… maybe go check out the rec deck, just try and relax a little. I mean, as much as you  _ can  _ on a deployment, but… y’know.”

“Wh… sure! Of course it’s okay.” 

“You sound kinda surprised.”

Takashi’s arm tightened around his waist a little. “It’s just… you’re… you actually just said you’re going to try and relax.” 

Adam shrugged. “I feel like maybe I  _ can  _ now.”

“Good.” Takashi kissed the top of his head. “Get some rest. You need it. You sure as hell  _ earned  _ it.” 

Adam squirmed a little, and Takashi loosened his grip. “Can we fit with you on your back?” he asked, and Takashi gave it a try. It was an even tighter fit this way, until Adam just sort of draped himself on top with his ear pressed against Takashi’s chest. “Mmm. That’s better.”

“Mmm.” Takashi wrapped that arm around his waist again.

It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep, judging by the way his shoulder dimmed and then darkened. Adam stayed awake a little longer, with the faint scent of aftershave and laundry soap and the warmth of Takashi’s body and the sound of his heartbeat, strong and steady, easing the last of the residual tension out of him.


	6. Epilogue: Two Weeks Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three in the morning, and Shiro couldn't sleep.
> 
> Three in the morning, and Adam couldn't sleep.

Three in the morning, and Shiro couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t because he was worried about Adam--not that he wasn’t, he  _ always  _ worried about Adam and probably always would--but Adam was doing a lot better. 

He still insisted on visiting his Lion first thing every morning whether he was on duty or not, and with the kind of bond they had Shiro couldn’t fault him for that. But he actually took a little time to  _ relax  _ once in a while now. He was starting to understand now that in this universe, he really  _ didn’t  _ have to be ready to fight every second of every day. He still had the occasional nightmares and panic attacks and he probably would for a long time to come, if not the rest of his life. But none of them were nearly as bad as that first night. And he held up his end of the deal they’d made--he actually did text Shiro or knock on his door if he was having a rough night.

He looked better. Just that morning Shiro had pulled out his phone and looked at the selfie he’d taken of them on their second first date at the ramen bar, the night before Adam got his arm back, and actually gasped a little at how  _ exhausted  _ Adam looked in it compared to the way he looked now. And, well… how exhausted he himself looked in it, but never mind that. 

He was even starting to reconnect with his friends outside his circle of Paladins and MFE pilots. A couple of days ago Shiro had found him having lunch at the chow hall with Veronica and Curtis filling him in on all the juicy gossip he’d missed on his side. 

But no, this time at least, Shiro’s insomnia had nothing to do with Adam. He just couldn’t sleep, was all. No reason for it.

Well... maybe there  _ was _ a reason for it.

He thought about knocking on Adam’s door, after all they’d made a deal. But this didn’t really qualify as a “rough night.” Not yet. But if he actually went through with what he was thinking about doing right now… it might.

Three in the morning in Arizona.

Shiro did the math. Yeah, that’d be a civilized enough time and this wouldn’t take long anyway. Just tell whichever one of them answered that Adam was alive, they were back together, and they could call him back when they decided to accept that. That was all he needed to say.

Easy, right?

He reached over and picked up his phone off the nightstand. Woke it up. Another missed call:  _ Garrison Med Neuro.  _ They just weren’t going to give up until he made that fucking appointment, were they? And yes, dammit, he knew he needed to, he needed to tell Adam about his condition and he needed to know  _ what  _ to tell him about it. And he still had that sinking feeling that this conversation was going to intersect with the one Adam really didn’t want to have. 

But three in the morning wasn’t the time to deal with that. 

He pulled up his contacts and scrolled down the list until he found his parents’ number. 

Sat there with his thumb hovering over the “call” button.

The truth was, that  _ wasn’t  _ all Shiro needed to say to them. There were a lot more things he wanted to say. Most of them, he’d already said and then came to regret later, only to be reminded why he said them in the first place the next time he called (because now that he thought about it, wasn’t  _ he  _ always the one that called? Had  _ they _ called  _ him _ once since he left home?). 

_ I was a prisoner on an alien warship. They experimented on me. They tortured me. They cut my arm off. I still have scars and I still have nightmares about what happened to me and sometimes I  _ still  _ wake up in the middle of the night wanting to scream. I escaped and made it home and spent all of one day back on Earth before I got flung back into space. I actually literally  _ died.  _ And after all of that, I get home again and risk everything to save your lives and everyone else’s on this planet and I find out they sent the love of my goddamn life on a useless suicide mission and all you have to say about that is “well, we’re glad you’re safe, maybe now that he’s gone you’ll snap out of this stupid phase of yours and find a nice girl to marry instead.” _

But there was no point in saying any of it again, was there? It would just bounce right off, and it would leave him angrier than before he called. And Shiro was tired,  _ so damn tired,  _ of calling his parents and trying to sustain a relationship they didn’t want to put a damn bit of effort into, of trying  _ yet again  _ to make them understand that this wasn’t a “stupid phase” and it was just the way his brain and his heart were wired and it wasn’t anything they’d done wrong raising him and it wasn’t something he was doing to embarrass them and he was not going to find a girl to marry, nice or otherwise and _ what part of “gay” did they not understand,  _ and so very goddamn tired of hanging up angry because they would. Not.  _ Listen _ . 

And then he’d call Adam’s parents and they treated him like family. 

Even after their relationship went sour, they  _ still  _ treated him like family. They called him a few times before the Kerberos mission, he called them after the invasion, and they said they still loved him and they were still proud of him, and  _ he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his own parents say they were proud of him.  _

How fucked up was  _ that? _

And more importantly… why the hell had he put up with it for so long? 

They  _ were  _ his parents, after all, however old-fashioned they might be, and he  _ did  _ love them. But he was still  _ so goddamn tired  _ of knowing he hadn’t done anything wrong and  _ still  _ having the nagging feeling in the back of his mind every time he talked to them or even thought about them that nothing he ever accomplished would ever be enough, no matter how many missions he flew, no matter how many records he broke, no matter how many gold stripes they put on his shoulders or medals they pinned on his chest, no matter how hard he fought or how many lives he helped save, none of it would  _ ever _ be enough because the love of his life was another man. 

That mindset had cost him his relationship with Adam once, and it almost cost him his life.

He wasn’t going to let it happen again.

In the end he just put his phone back to sleep and put it back on the nightstand, then pulled the covers up over his shoulder to block out the glare. 

The phone worked both ways. From now on, if they wanted to talk to him,  _ they _ could pick the damn thing up and make the call for once.

In the meantime, he still had a family here.

 

* * *

 

Three in the morning, and Adam couldn’t sleep.

He lay there in his bed, flesh-and-blood hand tucked behind his head, staring at a silver chain tangled in his metal fingers and a plain black titanium ring dangling on it.

The ring he’d put on Takashi’s finger, the ring Keith had given back to him the morning after he came crashing back to Earth. 

Adam had worn it on that chain around his neck ever since then. It was all he had left of Takashi, all he’d ever have left, or so he thought. And then he came crashing through a hole punched in space-time, into a universe where Takashi was alive and well. The ring fit him, but for whatever reason their relationship hadn’t gotten to that point here and Takashi didn’t feel right keeping it. Adam kept it in his pocket from then on, but he wasn’t really sure what he should do with it.

Three in the morning, and Adam couldn’t sleep. Because he finally knew what he needed to do with that ring.

He might as well do it now, at three in the morning when there was likely to be nobody else there. He got dressed, put on his shoes, slipped Takashi’s ring into his pocket, and stepped out into the hall.

He hoped Takashi was asleep, or if he wasn’t that he was at least in the bedroom where he probably wouldn’t hear Adam’s door open at this ridiculous hour. 

And he walked.

He walked until he found himself in front of a wall, a wall covered from end to end and top to bottom with the names and faces of the dead. 

He’d been back to the wall a couple of times in the last two weeks, but the last time there’d been someone there paying respects to one fallen comrade or another, and he’d looked up and seen Adam there, and… he wasn’t happy about it. He didn’t say anything to Adam, not directly, but…

From that point on, Adam decided it’d probably be best if he kept his visits to off-peak hours.

Earth was bruised and still struggling a little, but it was safe. Didn’t change the fact that it was gone in Adam’s reality. Lance came back safe from Ruvak’s hideout in this reality. It didn’t change the fact that he’d died there in Adam’s. 

Nothing that happened here changed any of what happened there, and vice-versa.

It didn’t change the fact that the Takashi he loved in his reality was dead there. And it didn’t change the fact that the Adam who loved Takashi in this reality was dead here. 

“So… how does the afterlife work with this alternate reality shit?” Adam said to his own face on that wall. “Does every universe have its own or is it just… all mixed up together?” He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. “This is making my head hurt, you know that?”

He sat down in front of the wall. “I don’t know about you but… I’d kind of like to think it’s all just one big thing,” Adam said. “I don’t know what went wrong on this side. I don’t know what happened or whose fault it was. All I know is, he never stopped loving us. So I’ll make you a deal.” 

He took Takashi’s ring out of his pocket.

“I’ll take care of yours.” 

He opened his hand and let the chain spill out onto the floor in front of the wall, and it took Takashi’s ring with it.

_ “You take care of mine.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adam and Curtis were buds, you can't change my mind

**Author's Note:**

> I literally just finished S8 like five minutes ago and wew lad. So... without spoiling anything: since I got no fuckin' clue how to retool this to really fit it into somewhere-between-S7-and-S8 canon screw it, it's a full-blown AU now! I'm leaving all this bullshit as it is for this fic and the rest of the universe--Admiral Iverson, Honerva/Zarkon fanboys/Lotor fanboys/Sendak fanboys/space pirates 5-way mobius reacharound of bad guys, Hunk's melee bayard and all! ...oh, have we not seen Hunk's melee bayard yet? silly me :3c
> 
> ...yo dawg I heard you like alternate universes so I put alternate universes in yo alternate universes so you can etc. yes I know it's an old meme sir but it checks out,

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [You Take Care of Mine, I'll Take Care of Yours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17617082) by [DarkPilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkPilot/pseuds/DarkPilot)




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